


Your Own Kind

by Suzume



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 13th Hunger Games, 14th Hunger Games, Black Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural Differences, Friendship, Gen, POV First Person, Victory Tour, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 205,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What comes after.  Mags as a mentor; Mags as a victor.</p><p>[sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/500049/chapters/877204">Save Yourself</a>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I, Chapter I

"Sometimes success is as disconcerting as failure."

                                             -Don Henley

 

Part I.

 

         Just Want to Move Ahead

 

         I try out different rooms until I find one where the sunlight creeps in each morning like it did in our old home. I awake too late without the light as an alarm (or I wake too early, in the dark, amidst the nightmares, and when I finally drift off again, sleep far too long).

         This is my own time, one day after another. Patterns develop and fluctuate. Mrs. Mirande changes her mind about staying in our old house- even if they're painful, she'd rather live alongside her memories so it comes back to us temporarily. Papa won't sell the house, but he feels unkind holding onto it when, undoubtedly, there's need. He gives it to Dan Armain, his closest male friend, who basically lived on his rickety boat in the time from the rebellion until then. Dan has no wife or children, but he uses the opportunity to move his niece and her family in with him. The house may be filled to the brim, but it's a sturdier one, in a better area than they came from.

         I find it hard to feel even as close as I did previously to my old friends, but I get along with basically everyone. The general gratitude is too widespread for many grudges.

         Papa and I have settled physically, materially into the big house that was part of my winnings by the time the call comes (emotionally is a tougher call). "Consider this your first reminder, Mags," Apple says, "Your Victory Tour begins one month from now."

         "Yes, Apple," I agree obediently. I'm neither looking forward to nor dreading this part. How much can I complain when I'm not going to have to either kill or die? Maybe seeing the other districts will be interesting. Will District 6 be as smog-choked as Sparrow suggested? "I'll be ready." It will be nice to see Apple and Aulie again, at least.

         "Was that Apple?" Papa asks from his place at the table.

         "Three weeks 'til the Tour," I answer. "I'm going out." If it were important, I would say more, but it's not. I'm just going out for the sake of being out. He understands the best he can.

         I weave my aimless way between the empty next-door houses.

         There are twelve houses in Victor's Village, so I guess the Capitol imagines a single district might have up to twelve victors at once? Will that be sufficient, or someday, somewhere, are they going to have to put up more? There is room for more. These were only the twelfth Games. The Victor's Village has its own docks and its own beach, though the houses are a ways up and away from the sand (it wouldn't do, having those pretty houses easily flooded when it storms). It's an island. Literally and figuratively.

         It feels like we're very alone. Papa and I have no neighbors. …On land, that it. At sea it's another story. At sea, things are just like the old days. Odair, whose sister was a tribute, cruises by with a new girl alongside him and both of them wave. A bunch of younger teenage boys I don't know from the school rowing team alternately practice their sport and splash one another mercilessly.

         Papa can't stand not to work, but there's no need any more for us to work very hard, so we pick around and don't take away from the needier people around us. I try to enjoy the familiarity of it. The simplicity.

         Except when I have some inexplicable (in that I can't find the trigger) bout of nerves and seeing the shape of a big fish moving through the water makes me break out in a cold sweat. Sometimes I can go out on the boat, but I can't fish. Sometimes just wading in the shallows sets me on edge. Papa tells me to take things slowly. Rushing won't help. Setting your mind to it can only get you so far.

         I have to go slowly, even when it gets boring.

 

         The idea that Faline was saved by my actions this time, but could theoretically be reaped again some other year tugs at my mind. 'Lito has one more year of eligibility too. Sometimes when I meet up with one or the other of them after school I get into taskmaster mode. "You can't count on the arena to have big bodies of water to swim in," I say like I'm some kind of expert, or, "You can't expect to be able to get your hands on the tools you'll need or even ones you're capable of using decently."

 

         'Lito calls this my "mentoring practice." He humors me, going swimming, practicing knots, throwing rocks at target, making fishhooks… I try to temper my arena-focused insanity in front of Faline, but from time to time she still ends up running sprints along the sand with me. Of course, as close as Faline came to it, to her, as well as to 'Lito, the exercises we engage in are a game at best. They like me, so they indulge my peculiarities. Anyway, at least we do ordinary things together too. I help Faline with her schoolwork and we make jewelry with shells and bits of glass we pick up off the beach. I help 'Lito paint in his father's boat shop; we talk a lot.

         I can't manage everything they might like. I won't play a beachside game of Marco Polo. I won't let 'Lito hold my hand. How much is a result of my Games and how much is just me?

         Where Games-related issues float uneasily between me and my friends, a decent number of adults have warmed to the feelings I expressed regarding readiness and volunteer-ship. I can't know how that would've gone if I'd lost (though second place would've still made my point pretty well), but I won. An older and just better prepared (marginally, in my case) tribute drastically improves the odds of halving the inevitable sorrow in District 4. So, maybe it's illegal to train for the Games, but what if a handful of kids have the inclination to hang out with a victor and learn some self-defense?

         The Capitol wants District 4 to play into the larger game at stake here by lauding my victory, right? And they'll be doing that better if I'm a local celebrity of some sort than if I slip silently away to sulk at home in Victor's Village. There's a balance a victor seems to need to strike (unless you're on-television-weekly Jack Umber). Don't become too needy for the Capitol's attentions; don't hole up in your basement and black out all the windows.

         Even if there's no battle training, which would do the most good, there is always my officially approved talent: basket-weaving. Weaving fibers by hand can make you a basket, but couldn't it also make a rope, a shelter, a component for a trap?

 

         When the Capitol's cameras come back to capture me for my Victory Tour, led by a pushy woman named Tosca, Apple contrives to make sure they start with my weaving "class" (it's a bit more impromptu and instructed than how I'd describe an average class). The fact that there are seven boys present to the three girls (excluding me) is played funny, as an indication of my "who wouldn't want to date a victor?" (answer: probably plenty of people in the districts) charm. This was Apple's idea and she thinks it's exceedingly clever. I'm just happy that the Victor Affairs people are obviously buying into, or willing to pretend to buy into, this as a 'cult of Mags' thing, not an infringement of the rules.

         A couple of my 'students,' Estelle and Rodrigo and Che in particular, even seem to enjoy being filmed and interviewed, which scares me on some level. The reapings aren't rigged, right? This isn't going to increase their odds of being picked? Even if they're preparing to consider staring death in the face, I think any volunteer comes at the situation differently than someone randomly picked. Just being that tiny bit more in control of your own destiny makes such a difference.

         Apple becomes my temporary student for the sake of the viewers back home. She's like some shiny bit of foreign debris washed up among the ordinary driftwood, surrounded by my little group: Che, Rodrigo, 'Lito, Slip, Salvador, Tack, Jerrick, Faline, Estelle, Maria. Apple's not a natural, but we help her make a bracelet out of palm fronds and green ribbon and she's extraordinarily proud that she was involved in its construction as I see her showing it off to Papa while the camera crew takes their lunch break on our porch.

         "Maybe Mags' talent is teaching as much as weaving," Papa says to her.

         "Someone taught her well first," Apple smiles at him. In her sea green and silver heels she's a bit taller than him. She looks down into Papa's eyes with an easy fondness. I realize I have no idea how old Apple is or what sort of family she has, aside from the sister I happened to meet on the hovercraft on my way out of the arena. Does Papa remind Apple of her own father? Or would he be more like an older brother to her?

         That he gets along with her is no surprise- Papa is my semiconscious role model in personable-ness. I've seen him angry and I've seen him argue, but I have never seen him start the fight. I can't claim the same about myself.

 

         I say good-bye to Papa and Faline on camera. I say good-bye to Mrs. Mirande on my own. In the other districts, I'll have to see the families of the fallen tributes, but that's to be a reminder of unpleasant things for them (as much as for me?). District 4 has a victor; that they also have a loss- one that I knew and liked- won't be rubbed in. It would only diminish the viewing pleasure of the Capitol. Under the surface, everyone who knew Beanpole thinks about it anyway (Apple obliquely refers to him as 'that poor boy').

         I'm upbeat with my good-byes in a "let's get this over with" sort of way. The sooner I go, the sooner I'll be home. And after the places I've been, it's easy to go anywhere knowing that I'll eventually come back.

         The tour's first stop will be in District 12, working our way back down numerically through the districts (skipping 4) to the Capitol. It's going to take a while to reach 12, even at this speed. It's further from 4 than the Capitol is. My styling team reunites with me on board and spruces up my ordinary, plain appearance with some makeup and hairpins. "You know how they say 'spare no expense?'" Erinne says, laughing, "Well, we're supposed to spare expense. There's a budget and anything that goes over it, we're paying for out of pocket."

         "Oh, uh, sorry," I'm not sure what to say, "I hope that the things I packed will be good enough."

         Erinne laughs more at this. "Ooh, it's not up to you to take care of that, Mags!

"Knock, knock," Aulie bellows. "Ladies, may I come in?"

         "Yeah," Irish counters, "And when we let you in we're never going to get you out!" She leans down toward my ear to share her more detailed grumblings. "Somehow he'll convince someone to do his makeup, which I think is how he saves money on his own."

         "He can come in if you don't mind, Mags," Erinne shrugs.

         "C'mon, Aulie!" I call for him. I've had his phone number this entire time, but I never quite felt I had the "need" to call him as he'd said, so we haven't been in touch. Apple only mentioned himonce among her various calls. For some dumb reason I had assumed they had some kind of common connection beyond me, but I think that's not true. Until I won, they probably worked with one another just that one month or so out of the year. And it's not like coaches and escorts have to coordinate what they're up to too closely.

         "I'm going to paint him up like he's Zastra Charmain if he starts trying to use the eye shadow we brought for you," Irish grumbles.

         Before I can ask an incredulous "Who?" (because if she means to be funny, I don't get her joke), Aulie bounds in, strong and strapping as ever. I reach out and he grabs my hands. "Mags! You look very nice! I think you've picked up the five pounds I thought you still needed the last time I saw you."

         "Fortunately they weren't ones that made me have to alter all my clothes."

         "Such a thrifty little victor!"

         "You're going to have to be my spending coach too if you want me to live up to your standards in that area," I counter. "It's hard to change a lifetime of habits like that. Anyway, I plan on living a long, long time, so it's going to have to last me."

         "Never ask someone from the Capitol for spending advance, Mags," Erinne warns me, "People in the districts may not know it, but a third of us outside the top echelons of society must be in debt."

         "Don't mention it when that camera lady is around though," Spring grumbles, "There's a dyed-in-the-wool propagandist if I've ever met one."

         "I don't like her either!" Irish laughs. Clearly, they hadn't exchanged opinions on the camera crew yet. "But the guys seem all right as long as she's not breathing down their necks."

         "I like the little blond one," Aulie shares his opinion. "He looks so thin, but it seems like he can carry all that equipment just fine. …The lady, though, is Tosca Snow. She wasn't in charge of the Victory Tour filming last year, but working with- honestly, it sounds like it was more working _around_ \- Emmy Pollack burned out several of the next in lines for this. I don't know what made her want in, but she had the connections to do it."

         "…Does that mean they think I'm going to be trouble? Because I don't want to cause any trouble." And I don't mean to, although I have a bad habit of wanting to know things that can be construed as troublemaking. I want to know about Tosca now- add that to the ever-growing mountain- and what was so wearing about working with Emmy Pollack.

         "Oh, Mags," Spring edges between me and Aulie to finish the light makeup the team was putting on me before Aulie butted in, "You're so cute."

         Aulie falls into exactly the behavior that was predicted for him and asks Irish to look over his own makeup. He's the cute one, I think. But "cute" also means "nonthreatening," doesn't it? And that's what I want to be. …The same as I was to some degree for my Games.

         The stylists release me with news that there's another activity already waiting for me and that I should go straight there and not mess up my makeup (apparently I touch my face without even noticing it). Aulie gives me a thumbs up when Erinne begins fussing with his hair.

         Someone else (Tosca, of course) has set things up in one of the cars for a "Hey, how've you been doing since your Games, Mags?" interview to be held while we travel. Apple is set to conduct it, which is good since we have a nice rapport.

         Of course she still asks things that make me squirm in my seat in embarrassment. I try to answer even when it's awkward. I figure it can always be played for laughs. In fact, I'd rather it be portrayed that way considering some of the interview content. It's bothersome to imagine people in the Capitol sitting around wondering about my love life.

         The questions fit the typical mold. The stuff they ask all sorts of celebrities, the stuff they ask every victor, the questions from fans.

         "Have you and your father been enjoying your newfound wealth? What's the most fun you've had with the money you've earned?"

         "Uh, I guess it's okay. We…re-painted and refitted the boat." As far as a living conditions upgrade, getting the new house would've been more than enough. We buy more fruit than we did in the old days, some of which has to be imported from 11, but, like I discussed with Aulie, we're used to living carefully. One windfall, however large, isn't enough to change that. I guess we're stuck in our ways. I was born in troubled times. I don't know a life that doesn't involve stretching to make ends meet.

         Fixing up the boat was good though, because it employed a lot of our friends and neighbors. The Ortiz Boatshop did the paint job, the Crestas sold us nets, Majorie's shop stocked us up on all sorts of useful nautical miscellany.

         "Refurbishing, hmm? Not a new boat?"

         "I'm kind of the sentimental type, you know? The house in Victor's Village is really something, so that's enough newness for me and my dad. It's a good boat." It's not difficult to talk about either. We really like that boat.

 

         "Do you have a boyfriend?"

         "No." That's one of the questions that kind of gets me. I twist Faline's ring around and around.

         I think Apple enjoys teasing me and, as a result, relishes this job she's been given. "Well," she leans in conspiratorially, ignoring the fact that this will be on national television, "What about a secret crush?"

         She wishes, right? Maybe the viewers do. I know that Kayta Hiro's girlfriend gets attention. …I suppose none of the other victors have significant others (or not ones that the Capitol approves of enough to reveal?), because I think that would be all over the tabloid TV. "Oh, no," I shake my head, "I've got so many other things on my mind." The Victory Tour, for one. Not freaking out, for another.

         "I have a feeling that you'd be able to get almost any boy around there you wanted." I don't agree, but she saw Lito. I don't know if they talked, but he could probably sell her on that impression with some of his looks of restrained interest alone. Whether that's true or not, she's supposed to say it, I have to remind myself. I'm a victor. I'm supposed to be "desirable." …But if they were picking for looks, Sparrow's the one they should've gotten.

         It's in "character" for me to downplay this kind of thing, fortunately. "I don't know about that… I'm not that pretty and I'm really stubborn and," I go in for the coup de grace, "Sometimes I sleep with my mouth open and drool."

         "Just a nice reminder that no one's perfect, dear," Apple chirps back at me. I think I'm cracking her up inside, but she stays as perfectly professional as you would expect. "Is there something in particular you're looking forward to on your Victory Tour?"

         I can play nicer with this material because I have a sincere interest in it. "Meeting the other victors," I declare plainly.

         "Any of them in particular?" Apple continues.

         Okay, maybe I still need to play it cautious. I can't just say that I want to find out what the deal is with Emmy Pollack. I can still be honest though, because there's a lot more on mind regarding my fellow victors than that. "Any of them; all of them, really, but if I have to pick someone specific, um, Shy Evert? I guess I'm kind of her fan, actually. I was happy when she won." I'm not sure if it's okay for me to say that this has a lot to do with the fact that I felt like she was avenging Aoko and the other weaker tributes like her."

         And there's another one I want to mention, although saying so aloud gives me pause and I can't figure out the reason for my hesitation. "…We met briefly in the Capitol, but I'd also really like to see Jack Umber again."

         I don't have any good reason to give as to why. I just find him…interesting.

         Of course, Apple can easily find an angle to approach this from that will stir up the fervor of the big Hunger Games fans in the Capitol, mine and Jack's both. "More interesting than the boys in District Four?" she bats her gem-speckled false eyelashes.

         "It's, uh, not exactly the same kind of thing, Apple," I counter, although I don't fight the accusation too much. It's not the same thing as the talk about the boys back home. That could be something (and it could send someone there the wrong message), but this is obviously fiction. I assume that Jack Umber knows more about show business than any other victor, since he's been in the spotlight longest and being on television is pretty much his talent (as a matter of fact, I don't know or remember what his official talent is), so I can't imagined this will ruffle him much.

         "Hmm, I think I'm onto something here. …Well, boys, you have some tough competition. Miss Mags went away to the Capitol and came back home with sophisticated tastes!"

         "Aaaaapple," I groan melodramatically, putting hands over my face. It's as much a game as anything else (but does she have to be so- so- ooh).

         "Do you have a special message you'd like to say to Jack in case he's watching?" she prompts me eagerly.        

         "Jack," I turn my face to stare directly into the camera, "People listen to you and no one listens to me, so next time you see her, tell Apple to stop making fun of me."

         To the right of the blond cameraman, Tosca Snow looks exceedingly pleased.

 

         When the interview airs the following night while we're still on our way out to District 12 (it was the slow start that first day that stymied us), our exchange is followed up by a "special message" in reply from Jack Umber. It actually looks like he might be sitting at home, but it's probably just some sound studio set-up. "Apple!" he announces without preamble, "Stop making fun of Mags! It's not her fault that she has good taste!"

         This is all so ridiculous and apparently shocking to me that it takes a moment to set in. I should be laughing now, right? I look around to see the reactions of the people watching with me. Aulie starts laughing first, hysterically, clutching his arms around his stomach. Erinne and Spring shove each other's arms, giggling, while Irish rolls her eyes and slaps her hand against her forehead.

         Tosca only smiles and reaches for her drink.

         When I meet Apple's eyes, I see that she's taken aback as well. She begins to laugh nervously, "Well, Mags, I suppose you got what you asked for..."

         An equally awkward chuckle escapes my lips, "So are you going to listen to him or will the mocking continue?"

         "I think our friends back in the Capitol just about expect it now," she counters.

         I am playing by ear here and I'm no musician, so the best I can do is one thing (one step) at a time. Jack Umber, I hope you know better than I do how to deal with what I've started, because I have no idea where I'm headed now…

 


	2. Part I, Chapter II

"Well, well, don't you look cute?" I pass Tosca on the way out to take in (to take on) my first stop on the tour. I offer a tentative "thanks" out of politeness' sake, but I don't feel it that deeply. I don't feel particularly comfortable with her (the rest of the camera crew haven't attempted much interaction with me, at least so far). I'm familiar with the other people comprising my team. Tosca is a stranger. …It's funny. I could take all the others in, but since the Games I feel a rising reserve toward unknown Capitol citizens. It's not the same in 4. Beyond these places, I'll just have to see.

         District 12 does not strike me as a particularly welcoming or cheerful place. There's a grayish tinge to things that would be white back home. The mayor's smile is forced (it's not this detail, but how obvious it is that gets to me). I look at the people and see immediate echoes of scrawny Juna Bright and the tiny boy, whose name I don't remember. The population of 12 seems generally more homogenous to me than that of home, but it might be that I'm only seeing a particular selection of them or not looking long or carefully enough.

         "How very…quaint," Apple declares their vaguely festive set up. There's some kind of harvest theme to the decorations.

         "I like the pinecones," Aulie says. He's more sincere in his appraisal. "I wonder what the food they'll serve will be like. Do they have any good local liquor?"

         "Don't get drunk at every stop on the Tour, dear," Apple lectures him. "I am not going to be responsible for dragging you along each step of the way. And we can't have you making Mags look bad! After all, you're a part of her team!"

         "I like to think that I'm somewhat more responsible than all that."

         I don't think District 12 is the kind of place you visit to go drinking for fun. …Not that I want to say you'd drink if you lived there. It's like that everywhere else right? It would depend on you. Some people are drunks back home.

         Apple and Aulie bicker like siblings while the mayor points out a smattering of landmarks to me. This is town, that's the Seam, there are woods out back, and the mines are that way. It gives me the impression that District 12 is only a third, or even a fourth, the size of District 4- or that much of what counts for the district is actually underground in those coalmines. Maybe I would feel differently had I been born here, but I feel glad I wasn't. The idea of going down into the ground like that unnerves me then. And I can see it then- the Games in a mine. …Except the spectators would see as little as the tributes, wouldn't they? I don't want to engage with these thoughts any more than I have to. I try to think of other things.

         An awkward session of speechmaking is followed by an awkward dinner. The mayor of 12 tells me that the wild turkey we're eating has been roasted and stuffed in a way so traditional that it predates Panem. Since people have had to eat since before the birth of civilization, I'm inclined to believe him. He is kind, in a stiff, self-conscious way.

         The families of the latest tributes are singled out, the most somber members of a solemn assembly. They're probably being forced to stick around and eat just to make them even more uncomfortable.

         I notice that boy's mother pointing at me. "That girl there," she probably saying, "Didn't kill my son, but she would have."

         And in the Capitol, the politicians hope she adds, "They're all like that in District Four." Which would be wrong, but I did kill or significantly contribute to the deaths of five people (Ada, Sparrow, Jem, Cadelle, Haakon). Or eight. Should I be counting Korona? Heath? Laurie and Juna? It is only the thousand-fold insistences of Mrs. Mirande that keep me from adding Beanpole to that wavering internal tally. It feels possible to me to blame myself on some level for all the others (as rational or irrational as that is), but I didn't kill Beanpole. I loved him like a cousin.

         I wonder if Juna's parents have thought I should have allied with their daughter instead of Sparrow.

         I think I wonder about too many things.

 

         "I didn't care for District Twelve as much as I would've liked to," Apple admits to me that evening on the train. "It makes me feel I should be more grateful for what I have. I really am a better match for Four."

         I can't say I agree that she's a good match for Four, because she knows very little about the district and until I won everyone back home only used to make fun of her, but she's been a good match for me, so I don't laugh. "Maybe we'll like Eleven better," I say, conceding that 12 was not a natural fit for me either. I probably won't see it, but 11 has coastline and there's shipping out of there. We have a border.

         "You've never been to the district other than Four," it occurs to me. Not that Apple would've had a reason to go to them, but, well, legally she could've, right? Don't people in the Capitol have more leisure time to use as they like? Would Capitolites travel just for fun?

         "No, I haven't. I suppose I've been waiting for a victor to share them with."

         "You could've gone if you'd wanted to though, right?" I pry.

         "If I applied for the proper travel permits and received them, yes, but, well, tourism to the districts isn't much recommended. There isn't much in the way of accommodations… With all the scars of the war still out there, what there is to see isn't always much."

         "Is there tourism to somewhere other than the districts then?" As far as I know, there might not be any other countries across the sea anymore. Papa can remember when there where at least two others in his lifetime, but if Panem contacts them anymore, they don't tell us about it.

         "You can visit the arenas. I went once, after Simon. I wanted to see for myself what it was like. …But the geography isn't the same as the circumstances," Apple notes quietly.

         I think she's a good person. She grew up much differently than me, but she's still good. "It's nice that you cared enough to go."

         She leans her head against the window and I see her eye makeup smudge slightly against the glass. I think she's tired. "I'm really glad you didn't die."

         I wonder if I had if Apple would've found another job. …Maybe she would've stuck it out to keep fighting for her sponsorship petition. "I guess I'll get some sleep," I rise and head for my room. "Good night, Apple."

         "Good night, Mags," she waves a soft farewell in my general direction, "Sleep well."

 

\---

 

         After breakfast, Aulie and I watch a movie about movie stars in the Capitol. The lead's mother reminds me of Apple and we tease her by telling her so. Spring met the woman playing the heroine once. She dubs the actress, "very stuck up." Irish adds a gagging sound.

         There's not much to do as we travel. I wonder what Papa is doing now. I hope that my 'students' are keeping their training up in my absence. I guess they'll get to see some edited version of my Tour on television though and that might keep them motivated. If I get the opportunity, I might tell them that I'll be able to tell if they're slacking off (even though that's probably not true).

 

         Our stop in 11 is similar to that in 12 in everything but visuals. Some head people meet with me and there's an exchange of speeches (I comment sheepishly on Jem's considerable sense of honor and fair play that I was unable to match). I get a tour of an orchard where a tough-looking little girl is urged by some sort of foreman to climb around to find a ripe apple to give me.

         "Here you go, Ms. Victor," she addresses me.

         "Thanks," I accept the offering. I eye the piece of fruit and my escort at the same time. The apple from 11 is a deep, lustrous red. The one I've brought along with me has largely stuck to her favored green. Aulie snickers because he can read my mind.

         "Do you work here?" I ask the girl.

         "Yeah," she replies, more casual with me than with the foreman.

         "I like fruit. Maybe I've even eaten something that you picked before."

         "Could be," she agrees.

         I want to ask if she knew Jem, or what she would've thought if he had won, but they probably wouldn't like it, and between the two of us, she's the one more likely to receive an actual punishment for pushing the rules. I ask her name instead.

         "Miracle," she says, and at first I almost don't understand it.

         "Wow, that's a pretty name. I've never heard it before."

         "Yeah, thank you, ma'am. My ma says she wanted me to have a name no one else had 'cuz I was so special and I guess she picked right."

         We exchange a little more small talk before I'm hustled on and Miracle goes back to work. I hope she only had to work a part day at most. She's young. What about playing? What about school?

         Someone from the camera crew notes that this should play well because 'there's Mags, being friendly again.' Continuity of character and all that.

         The sun feels nice on my shoulders, but it's probably burning the backs of the people I see hard at work all over 11 who could've been there for hours instead of just passing by. I try to smile anyway. I don't see how frowning could make things any better for the people here. I'm enjoying 11 more than 12 in any case.

         Apple seems to feel the same. She tells me as much when we're leaving that evening. "I could see visiting Eleven again- having a picnic under those pretty fruit trees…"

         "My dad would probably like that."

         "Mr. Gaudet is a very gentle man, isn't he?"

         "Well, he didn't fight the Capitol. I've killed more people than he ever will." And the Hunger Games are supposed to punish the districts for their rebellion. Did Papa's not fighting protect me until I decided to step up on my own? There were tributes in the first few Games whose parents were rebel leaders, but not all of them, or at least not all announced.

         "Before he met my mother, he was studying-" I pause. I think it may be illegal now, but would they get angry retroactively. It seems so unheard of. I like Apple, but to what extent do I trust her?

         I decide I trust enough. "As a...you know…a person of God," I say quietly, because just because I'm not being taped right now doesn't mean I should be reckless.

         "Oh, really?" She seems surprised, but not outraged or horrified. "That's so…antiquated. There are still people like that in Four? Of course, it makes sense that you would have to have gotten your superstitious side from somewhere."

         "It's the sailor in me," I counter. And that blood comes from both sides.

 

\---

 

         In District 10, I think I can safely say that the Tour starts to get interesting and the reason for that is first appearance of a fellow victor along the route. Emmy Pollack is waiting at the train station alongside Ferdinand L'Guard, her rather strange-looking (even for an escort) escort.

         "Do all escorts spend that much time with their victors or is some weird thing between the two of them?" I ask Apple and Aulie as the train comes to a halt. Ferdinand's hair is oiled stiff and doesn't budge, but Emmy's waist-length locks fly about like loose ropes in a hurricane.

         "She needs a lot of moral support," Apple says.

         Aulie is more direct. "I've heard she's mentally unstable. He's very calming to her."

         It's probably better to be crazy and alive than dead in your teens, but it's not all roses for the victors either. I can't decide whether the Capitol wants it to look like something wonderful or just the lesser of two evils (I can't decide whether the Capitol knows which it wants to depict in the first place either).

         When I step out onto District 10 soil- well, concrete- Emmy claps and cheers for me. "Congratulations, May!"

         You can't speak too badly of such enthusiasm, but I wonder what look I wear on my face just now. "Her name is Mags," Ferdinand corrects mildly.

         "Oh," she says slowly, "That's right. Hello, Mags."

         "Hello, Emmy." She doesn't move to shake hands or anything. I just sort of nod at her.

         "Let's go to the First Town Plaza," Ferdinand suggests. A tough, workingman type sits at the wheel of a large, red truck, decorated with garlands of flowers. There are seats in the back so Emmy, Ferdinand, my miniature entourage of Apple and Aulie, and I can all ride out where people can see us. It's like some kind of regatta, but with a single truck it's a parade. A (very) poor man's parade. …Though I guess the camera crew is following behind.

         The really funny thing is, about half a dozen people even see us before we reach First Town. The people there are politely welcoming. They probably feel a bit how every district with a victor has felt in regard to the one who followed them. "We had our turn, now you have yours." The boy from 10 had the unfortunate distinction of being the first one killed this year. Daisy Arlen made it halfway through, but she was only twelve.

         "We've got twelve settlements in District Ten. We call 'em towns," Emmy informs me. "Not that they're all full towns… I am the only person who lives in Twelfth Town- the Victor's Town."

         "Oh, I see," I nod more, trying got listen to her as the mayor of 10 simultaneously recites some kind of speech boilerplate about me.

         "Most of Ten is ranch land. Lots of people work with cattle. People here have worked with cows for hundreds of years. Mayor Hurth is wearing what they call a 'cowboy hat' and I am wearing cowboy- cowgirl- boots."

         "And now," Hurth prompts me, "Miss Gaudet will say a few words."

         "You should come to my house and meet my horse," Emmy continues, filling a silence she wasn't meant to fill.

         The crowd takes this all very stoically, but I think I flush before I begin speaking. I struggle through the formalities and Mayor Hurth rewards me at the end with a lucky horseshoe. Tosca, the head of the film crew, thinks the opportunity to shoot Emmy and me together can't be passed up. We go out to Twelfth Town and it takes me all of thirty seconds to goes which house is hers- the house is mainly red with white trim, but it appears to be in the process of being sloppily repainted pink from roughly the bottom up. I don't know why Emmy is so crazy about the color pink, but for some reason it forms the foundation for most of what I know about her.

         "My horse," Emmy trots on ahead of me, "Is named Gabrielle. She likes to be brushed. She likes carrots and sugar cubes…"

         "I'd never seen a horse in person before the tribute parade," I confess to Ferdinand.

         "Hmm," he bobs his head thoughtfully. "And you're so small."

         Emmy Pollack is tiny too. As a matter of fact, we're about the same height. She's about a year younger than me, but looking at her and talking to her, I would peg her as even younger than that. I don't remember much of what she acted like pre-Games. She didn't stand out all that much until the halfway mark. She wasn't one of the four most expected to win. I have to guess that the Games were a really traumatic experience for her. …And, on the flip side, wonder what it says that they weren't so paralyzing for me (or maybe I act weird too and I just can't see it?).

         Emmy assures me that her horse is very gentle, but I'm still nervous alongside such a large animal. There are ribbons in her mane. To the best that I can determine, she looks content and well cared for.

         Ferdinand informs us that horseback riding is Emmy's official talent and, for no apparent reason, Emmy's babbling overflow of words stops up, like she's worn herself out or suddenly switched mood entirely. She leans against Ferdinand's steady figure and stares out at us, an empty facade. She's gone away somewhere inside. She doesn't seem set to accompany my group back to First Town and, as a matter of fact, she doesn't say anything else until prompted by Ferdinand as we depart.

         "Good-bye, May," she misidentifies me again.

         "Is she mistaking me for someone?" I ask Aulie and Apple as we shudder back along the bumpy dirt road. It can't be the District 4 girl from Emmy's Games- not only was her name not May, she was red-haired and hardly resembled me.

         "I haven't the slightest idea, dear," Apple shrugs. "I think that girl is just very absentminded."

         "Cute though," Tosca adds her opinion. I'm not surprised she would like the girl who, indirectly, got her her job. She has some degree of control, I gather, over the cut of this footage that airs on television. Will Emmy's name-calling faux pas make the Victory Tour program?

         When we screech back into first town, their banquet is waiting for us. They're barbecuing and it smells great. Spring and Irish and Erinne are trying on traditional District 10 gear and making sketches. I tease them about knowing what district they want to leave me for now and Erinne explains that because I won they get first decision on whether or not to work with 4 or pass on it. All three women express the opinion that they would feel traitorous leaving me for another district as long as I still want them. "As long as we're employed by the Games, we'll be backing District Four."

         Just as with Apple and Aulie, I'm touched by their loyalty. But I suppose it's easy to back a winner. Apple and Aulie had past experience with Four, but the style team lucked out their first time around.

         "There was a message for you, Miss Gaudet," one of the train staff- the most important one aboard I've met at least- I've seen him directing the Avoxes- approaches me as soon as I board.

         "What? From who?" I tense up. Who would want to contact me? What could it be but bad news?

         "Mr. Jack Umber," the man smiles a bit like he's enjoyed the privilege of being involved in this exchange. "He telephoned and asked that this message be passed along to you." He passes me a piece of company letterhead with one question noted on it: "Are things going well with Apple?"

         "Oh, for shame!" Apple reads over my shoulder. "That man!"

         "I think he's looking forward to seeing you in One, Mags," Aulie muses. "I think he'd like to do some standup comedy with you and Apple."

         "He won't be doing any with me," Apple resists.

         "Not willingly, but-" Aulie whispers in my direction.

         I'm not sure how to respond, either the process or the words I might choose. "What should I do?" I look to my allies for guidance. They offer simultaneous statements in return.

         "'I am doing fine, thank you,'" Apple suggests primly. There's a tacit, "And now leave me alone, please," attached to her message.

         But Aulie's, "'Do you have a crush on him?'" draws all attention to itself from the second it registers in my brain.

         "Uh-" I gape.

         "Aulus Strong!" Apple chides him. I was worried I would turn red, but even if I have, it can't be anything compared to the pink creeping up to Apple's ears. I wonder why she's so amazingly flustered. "It's late," she announces, and I wince at how shrill and sharp her voice jumps out. "Mags, you should wash up and go to bed. That silly man can wait until tomorrow to hear back from you."

         That buys me more time to think at least, so I decide not to push her with any dissent. I carry the note away back to my compartment. I remember my initial trip on the tribute train and the labels Apple had stuck to the doors reading "Margaret" and "Jean Paul." Sometimes I think, even while I know he's dead, that Beanpole will turn up just around the corner. Actually seeing him die onscreen during the recap didn't change that. We were only a few weeks apart in age. We weren't best friends or anything, but like family, he was a continuous part of my life.

         Does a victor ever forget the person who failed to return to their district with them? I suppose if they didn't know each other before; if they didn't cross paths in the arena… Part of me thinks I should've asked Emmy Pollack about it, but, on the other hand, I'm not entirely certain she would've had a coherent answer. In 9 there will be Luna Vetiver, but if she acts in person the way she does on TV, I might be too intimidated to ask her. I'd rather save it for someone more willing. Because it's been the longest stretch of time for him, it might be most meaningful to reserve the inquiry for Jack. And I'm certain that he'll tell me. He likes to talk. He likes me.

         I lie in bed. I think about what Aulie suggested. Even if it's as he said, I shouldn't ask that. …And, in any case, I don't think it is.He's just like some older brother who wants to tease. He's probably scoped out all the other victors like this, and I've just been one of the better ones when it comes to playing along. I'm happy to play along if it creates a positive attitude in the Capitol toward District 4. If our rapport isn't fake, then even better. I would be happy to have Jack Umber as a friend.

         I have a dream that night where Beanpole and I take Jack to the beach, but he's afraid to go in the water. In the dream I can't conceive of how he would be afraid of anything. I wade out, with my pants rolled up to my knees, and call for him over and over (this being a dream, I lose track of Beanpole about halfway through without noticing), but he only shakes his head. He won't come. I can't understand his protests over the sound of the waves.

         It sticks with me when I awake. It seems like the kind of dream that means something, but I have no idea what. I tell Aulie about it and he's similarly intrigued but lacking in interpretations.

         Apple has a pre-arranged message back to Jack awaiting my approval: "Things are going well, thank you, Mr. Umber. I look forward to seeing you soon."

         I laugh. "He's going to know I didn't write that!" Not that I mind if she sends it. It's pretty eloquent. Of course, if Jack guesses that it was actually Apple who composed the reply, it will only add more fuel to this very silly fire.

         "Shall I send it then or shouldn't I?" Apple bristles slightly.

         "No, please send it. I really do appreciate your handling it for me," I try to smooth things over, "I wasn't trying to make fun of you, Apple."

         She relents. "All right. Now, we'll be arriving in Nine fairly early, so be sure and turn yourself over to the stylists right after breakfast."

         I wonder further about Jack Umber while I sit and allow my hair to be brushed and wound and teased into another variation on my signature style. I see him in my mind following me to the late night borders of that party overlapped with his image on television rooting for District 1, laughing at some joke that he made. How do you become friends with a fellow victor? The same way you become friends with anyone else, right? Anyone else you don't see much in person.

         "Look!" Spring directs as we enter District 9. As far as I can see are fields of waving grain cracked by clusters of tall processing plants of some kind. Gold and gray under a serene periwinkle sky. This is clearly a huge district, like 10 and 11. "Oh," Spring sighs, "What beautiful colors."

         Unlike Emmy, District 9's single victor is not waiting at the train station to greet me. Some of her family are though. Apparently, the man in charge- the "chief" he calls himself- is her maternal grandfather.   I'm not sure how close this makes him to Cadelle Vetiver, but I tell him I'm sorry anyway.

         Half of us pile into a black car with no top and the others, including Tosca and her crew, follow after, pointing the camera at us, then swooping around to take in the terrain. There are a few adults working some large crop machines in the fields and they raise their hands in perfunctory waves toward us.

         I wave back.

         The wind changes and I breathe in strangely scented air. "What's that smell?" I inquire, trying not to sound too disgusted by it, "The factories?"

         "Meat processing, I think," one of the chief's young female relatives answers. "The different places all have their own kind of smell. You get used to it."

         "I see."

         "My mom is the forelady at the vegetable canning plant," the girl adds. She's within reaping age, I imagine. I'm afraid to ask her name with whatever it is that's going on between the Capitol and Luna Vetiver. I'm afraid in a few years I'll be coaching some kid to go head-to-head against her. I like people too easily.

         "My name is Fauna," she says.

         There goes that.

         "Fauna Mallow." She proceeds to give me the name of everyone else riding along with me. Noah and Whistle and Faber, who are her siblings. Hurlen Miller and Naiya Vetiver- cousins. Ms. Noma, who is a teacher at the Plains One School (there are apparently two schools in 9). And Emerit Mallow, chief of the district. Sizz Larksen, the assistant Quadrant One fields overseer, is driving.

         "I was the most important person they would spare," he comments. "The boss says he can stand to wait to see you."

         "You couldn't?" I chuckle.

         "I thought it might be fun."

         "He drives all the victors around since Lu," Naiya Vetiver rolls his eyes (there is a resemblance between her and her famous relation). "He's going to ask for your autograph."

         It will be a first. "I don't mind."

         "Nice," Sizz cheers.

         A string of colored pennants is the only concession to celebratory decoration I see. A group of mainly kids is there to greet us. "We got out of school for the day," Fauna explains. Luna Vetiver is still not present. I shake a lot of tiny hands and basically every question I'm asked revolves around Crispco crackers, the shark, or what I would've done if I'd actually been able to catch a fish in the arena. My description of how to gut a fish garners a lot of "eww, gross" from the kids, which is funny because no one acts particularly bothered by the fact that I've killed people. Do you just accept that victors are killers? Or do you let it slip from your mind, tucking it into some dark crevice of thought? I suppose purposely taking out the insides of a fish is different from stabbing someone in a flurry of madness or self-defense. I didn't deal a killing blow to Haakon.

 

         Speeches are withheld until the nearest factory lets out early to provide an audience. Workers also come in from the fields. The parents of the dead tributes arrive. Luna Vetiver marches in, stiff and grim as on Reaping Day.

         The idea of "reaping" probably has a lot of meaning in places like 9 and 11. Honestly, I'm not quite sure why the term caught on in a place like 4 anyway. But since my victory, Papa tries to be philosophical about it. "Unless a grain of wheat," he says. It means that something will come of these deaths (or something of that nature). At first I thought he was just being religiousy about it, but it occurs to me that, on some level, what he's saying implies treason. Another rebellion twelve years later? It would be doomed to fail in a fraction of the time of the first.

         But the spirit of hope lives on. Maybe Papa has a dream that things can resolve peacefully. Gradually. He thinks a lot of things he doesn't tell me, I imagine, about what I did; what happened to me. I know that he approves, at least, of my efforts to be an example.

         Luna Vetiver climbs the raised stone platform in the center of the town. "You killed him," she says, her eyes as cutting as cliffs you'd wreck your ship on. "Don't say anything," she stops me before I can begin, "Nothing you can say will do anything. I don't like you, Four."

         I'm not confrontational enough to respond to that.

         We al play out our appointed roles. The family of the dead girl must be her grandparents. They cry a lot- more than any family I've seen so far. I feel really sorry for them. I get that "I'm glad I didn't kill that one" feeling. The mix of cold hatred and drained "it can't be helped" stoicism exuded by the Vetivers is easier to accept.

         I'd like to say something about Cadelle as my fellow volunteer, but I can't think of anything. I must be letting my weariness show though, because Aulie pats my shoulder. I recognize Laro, the little boy Cadelle volunteered for. He holds a strangely shaped leather ball, pointed at both ends, to his chest. I wonder what game it's for. I wonder if he played it with Cadelle.

         "You're weak," Luna chides me before she leaves. "Weaker than Emmy Pollack even. You shouldn't be proud of that, Four."

         I maintain the suggested silence and she leaves without saying good-bye. I can't say I like her, but I don't feel anywhere as strongly as she must feel about me. I wonder if it's just her cousin, or if there's something else to it. I'm not going to ask her relatives what her problem is though.

        

         I end up being toured around the wheat and other grains for a while. Fauna Mallow, who finagles her way into accompanying the tour, confides in me about it. "Luna hates all the other victors. I think they remind her of what she did in the Games. …And then what she didn't do afterward."

         "Oh." I feel a bit better. "I'm sorry."

 

         Luna doesn't show up for the banquet. Someone gives Apple and Aulie and me crowns of dried ears of colorful corn to wear. The leaves make crinkling noises when we turn our heads. The meal concludes with popped corn drizzled with caramel, which is salty and sweet and generally tastes amazing, but because the tenor of 9 is so subdued, I don't want to make a big deal about it (I will wait to gush over it back on the train).

         Fauna rides along with us in the car on the way back to the train station, but falls asleep leaning against Aulie. I give Sizz my unimpressive autograph, signing my name along the bottom of a propaganda paper picture for the article officially proclaiming my victory. His last question before I go is whether I have a scar from the shark bite. I bare my foot to show him the slim, snaky line, the only thing remaining from where the Capitol's surgeons patched me up. I have a feeling it will gradually fade away. It's faint enough to begin with. There's no charm in a gash on my foot. The Capitol would only leave a scar that was impressive or "sexy." I don't care that I won't keep it, though my foot's remained delicate enough that if I trip or bump it too hard, I can still feel the aftereffects of the injury (though I can't be completely sure it's not just a mind thing…).

         Sizz runs his finger along the seam of my skin. "You're really something," he murmurs. I'm not sure what type of "something" he means, but it is a compliment.

         "Okay now," Aulie scoops me up, "She has to go, Mr. Larsen. She has a schedule to keep."

         Apple picks up my shoes and follows after us.

         "Goodbye," I call to Sizz and to Fauna, still dozing in the car.

         "People are so varied," I observe to Aulie, who doesn't put me down until we're in the train (I guess he doesn't want me to step barefoot on something and hurt myself), "It's interesting to be liked and despised all in one town I've never even been to before."

         "You should be liked," Apple hands me my shoes. Whether because I'm me or because I'm a victor, she doesn't say. Both, maybe, as she sees it. "…It came a few hours ago, though no one saw fit to inform me about it until now, but Pal Fields sent us a request for your measurements if you're willing to give them. Apparently he's making you a present."

         I have no objection to sharing my measurements. How could I, when the entire nation has seen me ragged and tattered and fighting for my life? My height and weight are already general knowledge due to the standard tribute information (district, name, age, height, weight, and anything else of interest- in my case: volunteer). It's odd though. Does he make something for everyone? As far as victors go, Pal has always struck me as very gentle. It's the same as Jack or Shy Evert (not the gentleness for Jack though). I have a good impression of them without having met them.

         "I will tell Erinne," she answers dutifully. "…And Jack got your message." I have a feeling she did know about this earlier, but she just didn't want to tell me.

         "Did he say anything specific back?"

         "He knew _I_ was writing."

         I had a feeling he would. "Does he want a response from me?" I didn't mean to cheat him.

         "He didn't ask for one. He just said he's watching your Tour footage every night."

         Oh, joy. As if I needed a reminder to be self-conscious. Of course, I reflect further, once I've gone off to shower and wash my hair, this is Jack saying that. And, I think, Jack has my number. It may be a tease, but it's not a taunt. He doesn't want me to fail- now that I'm a victor, the Capitol in general should share his stance- he wants me to succeed.


	3. Part I, Chapter III

         Aulie passes the morning with me in front of "Weekly Fashion News." He knows one of the co-hosts and keeps poking fun at them (Apple says they used to date and had a really bad break-up).

         Erinne has put an outfit together for my day in 8, but she tells me as soon as I'm dressed that if Pal Fields has finished whatever he was making me, I should wear it instead. I like the long gray shirt and black pants she's put me in, they're simple and soft, but whatever comes from Pal should be special. It turns out I don't stay in Erinne's chosen costume very long, because the first person my eyes settle on as I step off the train is the mousy, retiring victor and tailor Pal Fields. He's holding a dress- pink and yellow and orange and white- and, to my eyes, it is the single most beautiful garment I have ever worn or pictured wearing.

         He hangs back while the mayor officially welcomes me to District 8, though he gradually inches nearer and nearer with undisguised enthusiasm. "Congratulations!" he blurts out as soon as there's an opening in the dialogue.   "May I hug you?"

         "Uh- yes?"

         It's a strange and awfully familiar thing to do for a guy I just met, but the way he grips me (crushing the dress between us), I get the feeling this is someone who really needs to be hugged back. I try to remember- does he have any family? Does this have to do with how he was clearly previously acquainted with his last male tribute, Heath? "Please be my friend," he whispers to me, hoping the cameras won't hear, then breaks away, not forcing me to answer in a hurry.

         "This is for you," he offers me the lovely dress.

         "I want to try it on right now," I declare and Apple turns me right around onto the train. The fit is just as superb as anything Erinne has made me. His handiwork is exquisitely professional. I think when I appear onscreen wearing this dress, Papa and Mrs. Mirande will like what they see. It lightens my mood just to look at and touch it.

         "Oh," Pal sighs with relief when he see me, "It looks nice on you."

         "This is really too kind of you," I insist, "It's a wonderful dress! Thank you so much."

         "You're welcome. It's my pleasure."

         When we ride into town, he positions himself so the side of his hand sits against mine. It's the calculated gesture of someone who wants to touch, but not give the wrong impression. The car is closed. It's the two of us and the mayor. "I had seven sisters," Pal tells me, "Five were alive at the time of my Games. My mother too. Maybe you remember when they were interviewed."

         It's true that as his prompting, the image of five young women with variations on his coloration crowding the camera resurfaces in my mind. "Our brother," they said, overlapping one another's words and creating a melody of fear; a counter rhythm of hope, "Is clever, is good with his hands, is always used to having someone to take care of him."

         "H-how did they all?" I ask, horrified.

         "Factory fire. One hundred and two people died by the total count."

         Accident or "accident?" Could the Capitol have possibly hated Pal Fields _so much_ that they would sacrifice ninety-six innocent people to take away his family? That's hard to imagine. Something must have happened in District 8. Something bigger than Pal, but possibly involving him as well. He's just telling me, but on some level, he's also warning me.

         "I'm really lonely," he says.

         The mayor, driving, lets out a snort, but I find it easy to feel sympathy for Pal Fields. I am glad we could talk like this. I turn to look out at the distort. There are a lot of factories, even more than in 9. The buildings are all such bland hues that the splashes of color where I can see through windows to where newly dyed fabric is hanging to dry (or something) are as enticing as the Capitol's most ridiculous desserts. Does anyone in 8 wear those things, or is the fabric equivalent of happiness nothing but an export?

         Apparently, they wear some for special occasions at least. There are colorful banners in the "Quadrangle" (a rather impressive town square) and a subdued crowd is gathered there, clad in brilliant opposition to their general mood.

         The reception they give me is equally muted- Heath and Mercy's families don't avoid my gaze, but they don't exert any special force through their looks either. They are just looking. "Oh," they're thinking, "So that's the girl." If they have any idea of what depths of loneliness Pal Fields is experiencing, they might be thinking, "Poor girl. She lived, and for what purpose?"

         I have no worthwhile words for them, but watching does dredge up the memory of Pal and Heath Holystone and how I could tell they were friends from the reaping.

         It isn't until I'm being toured through a very noisy factory that I can discreetly broach the topic. "Can I ask you about Heath Holystone?"

         "Yes, but there's nothing to talk about. He was my last friend here. …Now," he catches me before I apologize, or express my sympathies, or both, "Once he was in that arena there was nothing I could do for him. For Mercy either. It was in-" he takes a deep breath, notes the ears of Apple, Aulie, Tosca, and the mayor all within hearing distance and decides against finishing the sentiment.

         But I read into it. I nod. "God's hands," or whatever means "God's hands," to Pal Fields. I wonder if he understands that we are loosely united in this, believing, to whatever degree, that that is ultimately something more powerful than people, more powerful than the Capitol.

         I think he does. From the way he played his Games, we (oh, Beanpole) - we always assumed he was a smart guy. I think the machines in his mind are spinning, just like in this factory. …But toward what purpose?

 

 

         The locals may be quiet, but we visitors feel good here. District 8 fuels the fancies of my compatriots better than our earlier stops did. Apple is fascinated at seeing the ways the fabrics are made. Erinne declares the headscarves worn by some of the factory girls: "Very interesting. Very inspiring." The scarves are little flashes of color above costumes mainly plain and black or gray.

         I pose for pictures in my new dress beneath a pennant-festooned "tree" of directional arrows ("Victory Square" to the right, "Head Registrar's Office" to the north, "Factories 1-3" to the left). I smile without much encouragement. I know what they want to see. I must look fairly jaunty in Pal's creation. Irish pulls him over to give his hair a once-over before they let him into any of the shots with me. Together, I would guess, we seem every more jaunty. We look a bit dissimilar for siblings, but you could probably say cousins. Cousins going to the Wharf Fair. Friends off to celebrate whatever they celebrate in 8.

 

 

         The berries on my dessert that night are the only part of the meal grown natively in the district, Pal informs me. "If we get cut off," he shrugs.

         …And I can't discount the possibility of his life being sliced equally short. Words like this are treacherous even twelve years on and "rebels" still hang from time to time.

         I touch the side of my hand against his the same way he did in the car and he quietly gently. It's still sort of ironic when Apple notices and claps me on the shoulder with a cheery whisper of, "Oh, solidarity!"

         "Do you approve more of Pal than Jack Umber?" I quiz her when we separate to leave the district. I say it smiling. It's not an accusation.

         "Well, I," she glances at Aulie.

         "She trusts him not to have any ulterior motives. He's your age; he's quiet."

         How funny this is when I can sense the tiny fire in Pal's heart just waiting for the chance to flare up. What they think Jack might want from me, I don't know, but Pal's is an undercurrent of sorrow-forged rebellion.

"Different districts," Apple mutters, "An eleven year age difference- it's really too much. A very clever television personality he might be, but Jack Umber is not Capitol. He should know there are certain things he should not even be asking for. And," she jolts a bit, "And that's even if other people would be willing to give them."

         Which makes it sound like Jack is interested in me in a way I cannot believe he would be. That I can't believe anyone with any sense would be. (And they don't read Pal that way because-?) "No," I insist, "He just wants to get a chance to talk to me more naturally. You know I played a bit on his post-Games persona in the way that I presented myself. Fortunately, however, he seems pleased rather than irked that I ripped him off."

         Apple's looking at me like I'm slow. "No, dear," she says, "I think he _likes_ you.

         Which I'm still not willing to believe.

         I lay on my bed in the dress Pal gave me, not wanting to take it off yet. …Some clueless Capitol citizen's affections I could understand- but Jack's I cannot.

         I fall asleep still dressed.

         I dream about climbing trees.

 

 

         My friends laugh at me in the morning when I bring the exceedingly crumpled dress from Pal in to Erinne and ask can she "iron it and it'll be like new, right?"

         The expression on my face must be more pathetic than I realize. "You didn't ruin it by sleeping in it, Mags!" she's smiling as she shakes her head. "It'll be just fine!" she takes the dress out of my hands.

         "I just," I mumble, "It's important to me." I pull the little note I've written out of my pocket and pass it to Apple. "…Can you see that this gets back to Pal? I mean, I know that he knows I liked it…but there's not really anything I can think of to do for him except say again."

         "Oh, that's so sweet of you," Apple says. "Of course I'll take care of it."

         I sit quietly (kind of embarrassed) as I scoop berries onto my oatmeal and slather an overly generous amount of butter onto my toast, then watch it melt from the warmth of the bread.

         Aulie turns on the TV and flips through some menus that I didn't even know we could bring up. "I recorded something for you," he says.

         I hope it doesn't have to do with Jack Umber, because I'm getting tired of being teased about that. I'd just like Jack and I to get to maybe be friends without anyone bothering us about it, but I suppose that as a victor (as two victors) that's too much to ask for. …But I think of Aulie and Apple as my friends as well so maybe it's not strange then for me to expect them to be a bit more definitively on my side.

         But (fortunately) it has nothing to do with Jack Umber. It's a cartoon. Just some kid-directed thing. I watch as I eat my breakfast, although I don't know what Aulie wanted me to see it for until the funny, semi-stifled smiles start to spread across the room, indicating the point of interest to come.

         The two stylized girls in the story end up hiding in some bushes. I can't see where this is going until they start discussing how they don't know how long they might be out there and one's stomach growls. Well, it turns out the other girl (the one with the purple hair) has brought along something to eat: a tin of Crispco crackers.

         …and then I know. The girl with the blue hair says the words I have seen myself say in rerun almost word for word: "This is the best cracker I have ever eaten! Crispco! I could eat the whole tin!"

         I've left an impression… And while it's not really the kind to be proud of, it's better than being caricatured as a killer. That's me. A goofball girl who loves crackers.

         Butter drips down the side of my hand and the style team laughs at me good-naturedly as I lick it and show myself to be all too close to the joke being made onscreen. Were they ever hungry during the war? Maybe not. I think they would remember that. Or maybe I'm not funny because I'm hungry? Maybe I'm funny because I'm so earnest about it. It's that thing where it's not "cool" to show too much interest in something?

         I was never "cool" until I was suddenly a victor. And even now I'm not exactly "cool," but I'm liked as I portrayed myself onscreen. There's a saying isn't there? "Everyone loves a winner?"

         I think of the other victors. Of how we smiled when we saw them on TV. Even though they weren't from 4, they weren't Capitol, so they were us, of a sort. We put it to the back of our minds that Hector Auric killed both of the kids from 4 his year when he juggled apples on "Amateur Hour." I hope that people- the people in 7, the people wherever- can do the same for me.

         I gaze off at nothing.

         And then I'm looking out the window when I see them.

         The trees.

         They start out gradually, and though the varieties are different, they're of about the same density as in the more heavily wooded reaches of 4. But then there are more. And more. And more. And they're tall. And some are so thick. Amazingly thick, like no tree I've ever seen before.

         "It may be cold out there," Erinne wraps a scarf around my neck, "We've been on a northward trajectory of a little while now."

         "There are matching gloves," Spring holds them up for me to see.

         I stumbled sideways as the train slows to a stop, trying to help Spring pull the gloves on my hands. Erinne has me turn around for them to see- a whole one-eighty. She gives me a thumbs-up. "Camera-ready," Tosca agrees. So I am lightly bundled up as I leave to meet the trees.

         I can feel the cold as soon as I'm out there. The scarf and gloves and all were worth it. Is it cool here all year? If it is, the temperature of the arena must have felt very strange to Haakon and Meridew.

         Not wanting to think of it doesn't stop me. I picture the pale of Haakon's face as he bled out on the dirt. I didn't finish him and I didn't save him. He said he had a sister.

         "Come, come," Apple urges me forward, because apparently I'm lost enough in thought so as to miss my proper cues.

         Kayta Hiro is more like Pal or Emmy in his reception than Luna as he's waiting here to see me. Raisin, his girlfriend, stands beside him. I have a vague recollection that she was being discussed on television around the beginning of my Games, but it's harder to remember smaller things like that in the shadow of what occurred in the arena. Apparently I do know what Raisin looks like well enough to recognize her. Maybe it's just that this is the proper context. I hadn't realized I would have.

         "We had it in the bag, Mags!" Kayta speaks to me loudly but without anger, "We should've won that."

         "It was fifty-fifty, Kayta," Raisin reminds him in a voice not even half as loud.

         "I can understand why he thought it wasn't," I offer. "Haakon and Meridew were really good- better at it than Beanpole and I. …In the end, it turned out that Haakon was nice." That's why I won and he died. Haakon was probably a lot like me.

         Kayta can agree with this. "Yeah, he was nice. A warm personality and all. Meridew was more cool. But I would've been happy to take either of them home with me." Raisin leans in and takes his hand. They seem very natural together. Real girlfriend and boyfriend for sure, not just some spectacle for television. The reason the Capitol wants so badly to show victors having regular lives must somehow mean that many don't (or can't).

         Kayta squeezes her hand. "If I'm going to come home bringing only corpses along with me, you're a very good pick for company though," he allows. Raisin gives him this look of fond exasperation.

         "We haven't made a full set yet. It was about time we got a Four."

         A very pale, middle-aged man squinting through his spectacles sways unhappily from side to side. He's probably someone important out here. He's obviously not enjoying my conversation with Kayta and Raisin, but bigwig or not, he doesn't feel confident enough to butt in and cut it short. Tosca is giving him a funny look, having noticed his discomfort, but she doesn't look like she's about to step in and help him either.

         I feel bad enough that I can't just let it go any longer. "Um, Kayta, is this Seven's mayor?"

         "Ah, yes," he seems pleased to act airy about it as if he never noticed the hand wringing going on a few feet to his right and contribute to the mayor's displeasure, "This man is Mayor Temza Bacon."

         "Victor Margaret Gaudet!" he blusters, calling me by my full name- it's the first time I've heard it in a while. I think I have been cemented into the public consciousness as "Mags." "Congratulations on overcoming the arena! Truly, you were a worthy opponent for our tributes. Welcome to District Seven!"

         I expect him to reach out to shake hands after that, but instead, he keeps his hands at his sides and gives me a small bow.

         "Um, thank you," I nod my head back, unsure of the proper bowing protocol. "District Seven seems like a very picturesque place."

         "You like trees?"

         "Yes, but none of the trees back home are- well, in Four, there's no forest like this."

         "I'll take you around," Kayta resumes leadership of the conversation, "Don't worry," is his only concession to the mayor's nerves, "We'll follow the itinerary. Come on, Mags."

         Parked just a ways down from the station is a clean but dinged up black truck. Kayta heads off toward it with Raisin beside him. "Um, err, Kayta, what about-?" Mayor Bacon stammers.

         "Ooh, that's right. I can only get three people into the cab of my truck. And now that's going to be me and Raisin and Mags. …You mean you didn't prepare _any_ transportation for the rest of these fine folks?"

         I'm not sure what to make of all this, because Kayta Hiro seems to have the poor mayor squeezed beneath the heel of his boot, and, even more alarming, he's carrying on this way in front of cameras from the Capitol. Isn't he concerned that there might be repercussions for his behavior? He makes me want to hold my breath.

         One of Raisin's hands is clasped with Kayta's still, but the other stretches back toward me. I reach for it. Glove touches glove.

         "I _suppose_ you could all climb into the truck's bed," Kayta shrugs. There's a slyness in his dark eyes that makes me think he's been planning on this the whole time. …Of course, I think it should've been the responsibility of the mayor to see to it that everyone would be able to get where they need to go, so…

         Kayta sends Raisin and me ahead into the cab and we peer through the rear window as he jauntily assists Mayor Bacon, Apple, Aulie, Tosca, and two cameramen all into the back of his truck. The style team, who've watched everything this far from a distance, decline to squeeze in. They've probably made the right decision. The way Kayta grins when he climbs in alongside us, I have a feeling that my escorts are in for a rough ride.

         "…Do you drive frequently?" my voice comes out in an unplanned squeak.

         "All the time. …Did I not mention it in my Games interview? Eh, it was a long time ago now- maybe you forgot. Before my dad died, back in the rebellion, he taught me how to drive- I was still kind of small then, so I had some trouble trying to see where I was going and reaching the pedals at the same time, but, eh." He laughs. "This truck used to belong to him. He left it to me. The times I had to leave the logging camp and be in town, I lived in this truck."

         "That's how I met him," Raisin offers, "My mother was the district postmaster and no one could ever figure out where to send things to so they'd reach him, even though we kids in school were sure he lived in town. One day, to help my mom, I tailed him and saw him climb into this truck and go nowhere."

         They're both smiling at the memory, though Raisin's response is warm and full and Kayta's is tight and thin. "And now," he announces as he turns off the paved area around the train station onto a wide dirt road, "Hold on, ladies, because it's going to be an interesting ride from here on out…"

         The translation of this is that Kayta Hiro can not only drive well, he can also drive like the slightly off-kilter young man who killed six people and smiled and smiled and smiled afterward. It's not as if he's just out and out reckless. I never fear for _my_ life, that is. But the people in the back must be having quite a ride, bumped and shaken this way and that over the holes in the road and around the corners he manages to take as sharply as possible.

         Apple's yelps make me feel sort of guilty.

         But not enough, apparently, to ask him to stop.

         "All out, folks!" Kayta swerves and brakes. From the back come sighs of relief.

         I can hear Tosca interrogating the mayor: "Do you run this place or does he?!" I don't catch Mayor Bacon's actual response, but it doesn't sound as if his timid streak has suddenly ended. Kayta Hiro doesn't run 7, but Temza Bacon doesn't cross him, I'd guess.

         I move as if to exit the vehicle, but Raisin stays my hand. "Mags, you get the special tour." Her smile is mischievous.

         "…what does the special tour entail?" While I'm sure Raisin and Kayta mean this with only the best of intentions, they are making me a bit nervous. I didn't come prepared for any portion of the Tour to go so distinctly and purposely off the rails. What if I protested against it? Would they drag me off with them anyway? …Looking at them, I am led to believe that they might. Not to be cruel, of course. Because they think it would be fun.

         "Forest, forest, and more forest!" Kayta slams his foot on the pedal and we take off, leaving the mayor and my entourage behind. "-And not a camera in sight!"

         "Oh, Mags, it'll be okay," Raisin tries to comfort me, because my surprise and worry must show clearly on my face.

         "D-do you do this kind of thing with all the victors?" I sputter.

         "Of course not," Kayta chuckles, "If we did that, even someone as dim as Bacon would've caught onto us and figured out a way to stop us by now!"

         "We would never have done something like this with Emmy." Raisin looks slightly horrified by the idea. "Who knows what kind of reaction she would've had to it."

         "We got Pal pretty good though," Kayta reminisces.

         "He was scared at first, but he ended up enjoying himself," Raisin expands upon this remark. "And, see? We didn't get him in bad trouble. Pal's just fine, isn't he? I mean, you just saw him."

         Just fine? I doubt it has anything to do with any misbehaving on Kayta and Raisin's part, but Pal Fields is hardly fine by my standards. Is this another "you're a victor adjust your standards" moment? Because Pal seems sane and coherent, things I'm not sure can be said about all the victors, but he's also lonely and desperate and sad (and there was so little I could do for him, it felt like nothing). "I-" I begin to formulate a polite way to object to this statement.

         But Kayta cuts in. "She doesn't get it, Mags. She _can't_ get it the same way we do. And, honestly, I'm glad it's going to stay that way, because hasn't that evil contaminated enough?"

         We all go quiet. Small branches snap beneath the wheels of Kayta's truck.

         Raisin seems to be pouting, but whether I caused it or Kayta did isn't immediately clear anymore. "Pal Fields wants to make me a wedding dress." She breaks the silence with a tiny smile. "Of course, I'd ultimately prefer it were up to a certain man in this truck. I do a lot of things, but asking is something I'd like him to do."

         "Eeeeeh?" Kayta makes an exaggerated noise of- confusion? "What was that, Raisin?"

         "Stop the truck and let's go for our walk," she says in a snippy manner.

         "As ya wish, beautiful!" he brings the truck to…a surprisingly smooth stop after all the screeching around he's done thus far.

         "Ah, _dooooomo_ ," she chirps and hops out the door.

         I follow her. Just a few steps off the vaguely defined road the layer of fallen leaves becomes layers. They crunch beneath my feet. There's something ocean-like about them. Like a beach of dead leaves instead of sand. A cold breeze blows through the trees. Loose strands of hair flutter around my ears. "Is there something special about this place in particular?" I ask.

         Kayta gets out of the truck. "Not this exact spot."

         "It's just a spot," Raisin giggles. Does she have extra teeth or are they just squeezed together too tightly in her mouth? Close-up I really notice how they overlap. Is that genetic?

         Kayta walks in front and Raisin and I follow him, meandering through the trees (I am counting on the two of them not to get lost, because it all looks pretty much the same to me). He tells me some things about the trees- the different types, how old they are, how long they take to grow, what the best uses are for different kinds. The way he pauses and laughs at some of the things he says, I'm left to wonder if there are jokes here I don't understand or if he's trying to convey some kind of coded message that flies equally over my head.

         "So…you're friends with some of the other victors?"

         "There's a group of us. Me, Shy, Sunny, Pal, and Jack. And," he adds, "Probably you, I figured."

         I'm a bit coy in my response. "What are the conditions?" I don't think there's anything as strict as that to be considered, but I'm curious as to what he'll tell me.

         "You have to be friendly. That's pretty much it. …And you have to be with it enough to be trustworthy."

         "Who's not 'with it?'" I can already guess the answer.

         "Emmy Pollack." He shrugs. "I couldn't guess the slightest thing that goes through that girl's head."

         "Pink," Raisin volunteers, "Ferdinand."

         "Aaah, yes," he accepts these as valid answers. "Ferdinand," he repeats. "Anyway, I don't want to spoil the surprises for you, but it's like this. Emmy is a head case, Luna hates everyone who isn't from Nine, Pal lives up to his name- though I don't understand why he's not just called "Paul" or "Pol" or something more normal-"

         "It must be some kind of Seven thing," Raisin chimes in on the tangent.

         "Ohh," I realize, "It's like a nickname for Paolo or Pablo? I thought it was a different kind of name entirely."

         "Actually," Raisin begins.

         "We don't know," the say at once, then laugh. There's something about the way that their eyes meet that fills me with embarrassment. It's sweet and I'm uncomfortable seeing it. "We just thought…" Raisin finishes. "It's like I've never known anyone called 'Mags,' but I know a Margreta called 'Greta,' so I understood that it was just a District Four thing."

         "Cross-district couples wouldn't just talk about names- they'd have to think about versions of names," Kayta muses.

         Now Raisin looks embarrassed. "D-don't talk about names!" she spits out, flustered.

         "Were you going to tell me about the rest?" I come to her rescue. "After Pal?"

         "Ah, yeah," he agrees. "Want to sit?" Before I answer, he makes a show of taking off his coat and lying it on the leaves under a nicely shaped tree, gesturing for Raisin and me to sit down on it. She takes the offer first and I slowly follow. Kayta sits down in the dirt across from us, but doesn't seem to care about that. I would've sat on the bare ground too, although I would be slightly concerned about getting the nice clothes my style team chose dirty (if it were my own clothes, I wouldn't worry- I'd just wash them later).

         "So, there's me. I should probably let you come to your own conclusions about me."

         Something about the look on my face gives him my answer. "…Then again, you probably already have."

         "I might've," I play along.

         "Then in Six there's Teejay and Sunny. Like I said, Sunny's nice. She's a good person. Too good a person for our crowd, really. Teejay's usually in his own world and that's where he wants to stay. Shy's nice too. She doesn't take Games stuff personally, which is good. In my opinion, she has a kind of scary ability to disconnect from things she doesn't want to feel anything about. …I don't think Beto dislikes us, but maybe he thinks he's above us? He's too smart for me, anyway. He likes to be by himself. Gerik and Hector will talk, but they keep to themselves. You…" he pauses to think, "You don't seem so different, but I don't know- the inner districts seem to have more distinct cultures. Different things are going on there. Outer districts get each other."

         "And probably bleed together to the Capitol," Raisin speaks up.

         "Yeah, you've got that," he grumbles, "I'll tell you right now I don't know anything about horses."

         "I didn't think so," I smile.

         He seems to have worn out his speech about the other victors with this second digression, but I'm still interested in hearing what he says about Jack. Who is from an indisputably inner district, but who Kayta also considers part of his group of friends? "What about Ja-"

         "Mags, darling!" calls Apple, "I hear you! Let me know where you are!"

         " _Grobian_! Malefactor! _P_ ǐ _zi_!"

         Those must be Mayor Bacon. I don't understand any of the words he's saying, so I'm supposing that frustration brings out the dialect in him.

         "Bus-ted," Raisin singsongs.

         Mayor Bacon comes into sight first. Kayta jumps up to greet him, acting for all the world as if it never even occurred to him that what he was doing could be considered wrong or insubordinate. He does this so easily I can't help but feel a little sorry for the mayor again. Kayta exerts the pressure of a tidal wave. I can't understand most of what the mayor says to him, although he gesticulates a lot, which makes up for the strange words. Something-something horrible influence (on me, on Raisin). Something-something (other mayors?) would not up with this. Capitol retribution (on Kayta? on both of them?).

         Apple runs up and hugs me tight, like she's afraid these "ruffians" from Seven might have hurt me.

         A large truck snorts to a stop not far away- it can't reach us without pummeling its way through the underbrush, but I can see it and the thick-bearded man driving it through the trees. Tosca steps down and intercedes between Kayta and Mayor Bacon. "We have a schedule to keep, so let's get back on track. Scold him on your own time." She's ice cold. "…Unless you want me to report this incident to Victor Affairs. If you can't handle this man, I'm sure that someone else can, Temza."

         He tenses up. Even Kayta seems to stand slightly more alert at this suggestion. The devil you know?

         Apple leads me over to the truck, where Aulie brushes me of- there are pine needles in my hair. One of the cameramen films him doing this. They won't show any of this detour, obviously, so I wonder how he thinks they might cut it in. But I haven't watched any stop of my Tour footage in full. Maybe they chop all of it up into tiny pieces and puzzle them together afterward into something almost entirely different.

         The mayor doesn't trust Kayta to drive his truck over to the logging mill we're going to tour next, so he tells Raisin to take charge of it. But Raisin doesn't know how to drive (she giggles nervously behind a hand raised over her teeth). Aulie volunteers himself to do the job, although he needs directions. He doesn't think to just ask Raisin to come along with him, but instead has her draw him a map. At a quick glance, it looks to me like nothing but triangle shapes and squiggly lines.

         In the back of the big truck, Apple sits on one side of me and Tosca on the other, effectively blocking me from direct or unsupervised contact with the local troublemakers. When they're not paying attention, Kayta makes faces.

         As a result of the time we've lost, I suppose, our visit to the lumber mill is very focused and perfunctory. Some paper mills and carpentry shops are pointed out to me, along with signs pointing in the directions of various logging camps.

         The time for me to be put through the tortuous speech-making process coincides with the end of the school day. Perfect timing for Haakon's younger sister to come and hate me or despair or whatever it is she felt about me then and probably continues to feel.

         Teachers and other employees of the school come to see. Shopkeepers and others who work in town (Raisin points out her mother) and a selection of workers from some of the nearby processing plants and factories who won a lottery to attend (I wonder whether or not they wanted to win that lottery- if they're losing money that would go to feed their families while they watch me smile and stumble).

         I do have the opportunity to give them some honesty. "I completely understand if my being here rubs every one of you the wrong way. It came really close. If the Games were completely about skill, I'm sure Haakon Erikson or Meridew Alder would be our victor, because they were really good at doing the hard things the Games ask you to do. I couldn't have won if it weren't for Haakon. I mean, I wouldn't have won if not for the actions of a lot of people, but it was the goodness in Haakon that kept me alive in the very end. He wouldn't even have had to kill me. He could've just let the shark do it."

         I think I have found his sister in the crowd. She's staring up me. Her eyes are blue and her lips are slightly parted. The knot in my stomach twists tighter.

         "Correct me if I'm wrong…because I might be wrong. I never knew Haakon personally. We only interacted a little bit during training. But I think Haakon and I had some things in common. He and Meridew were a team, just like Beanpole and I. We needed our district partners to survive as long as we did. We valued some of the same things. Our friends, our family, our home districts.

         "I'm going to tell you all the same thing I told Kayta when I arrived in Seven today. I didn't win because I was better than Haakon in any way. I won because Haakon was better. I hesitated when he did not. He was a good person."

         I want to cry, but it seems wrong to seem to be crying over my own speech. It's not my words, really, but the thoughts they dredge back up. It's a shame that I wasn't able to know Meridew or Haakon. It's a shame that saying these things is all I can do.

         The mayor makes a few kind remarks that don't really soak through my skin, then Kayta grabs the microphone for some grandstanding, trying to cheer people by reminding them that even though 7 didn't bring home a second victor this year, they were _so_ close and maybe next year will be their year again (though what happened this year can hardly determine any of that because, while the general outline and goal will remain the same, all the details- the tributes, the arena, the challenges- will be different).

         Haakon's sister is crying. What Kayta's saying won't help her any more than the things I said. The crowd seems to feel about the same. Kayta and I receive roughly the same amounts of applause. It makes me wonder about 7's relationship with their victor. Does Kayta say these same things every year? …And 1 might be completely different, but I know for certain that Jack _does_ say things of that nature every year, and it's been even longer since anyone from his district won. I have some thought (and investigating?) to do in the future about how I address my district.

         Mayor Bacon invites a couple of elderly men onto the stage and they bring their musical instruments with them- some kind of flute that I'm not familiar with, a pretty stringed thing like a lute, and two fiddles. All combined, they make some very interesting music. Kayta hops down off the stage and convinces some kids in the crowd to start dancing. Raisin sits down on the stage's edge and claps her hands, turning and looking at me, encouraging me to join her. I don't think I could pick up this dance easily. I follow Raisin's lead.

         Of course, Kayta doesn't let her off the whole time. As soon as the next tune comes around, he sweeps by and grabs her hands. " _Gehen wir_!" he urges her, grinning, "C'mon- _shiyou_!"

         "Not for television!" she protests, " _Nein! Peinlich-shiiiii_ ," she drags out the last syllable petulantly.

         "I would highly recommend that you take part," Tosca slinks down to sit on Raisin's other side.

         "Ha ha." Compared to the many laughs I heard from her earlier, this one sounds force. "Oh, I am just playing hard to get, Ms. Snow." She lets Kayta tug her carefully down. "I meant to do it the whole time."

         Based on the way she dances, I really don't see any reason for Raisin to be embarrassed. She's good. At first she's self-conscious and her eyes keep darting around in search of the cameras, but after a while she gets into it and I don't think any outside the bounds of the dance even seeps into her mind.

         Eventually a dance comes around that Mayor Bacon thinks I could catch onto. It's partnerless, so I don't have to worry as much about tripping anyone else up or stepping on their feet. He waves over two little girls. "These are my granddaughters," he informs me. "Mimi, Chiyo, can you teach Mags the woodcutters' dance?"

         I think they might be twins. They look very similar. I'm not sure which is Mimi and which is Chiyo. One is wearing a red dress and the other is wearing pink. I'd guess they're still a few years below reaping age. "Yes, _Opa_ ," they say, their identical replies overlapping (the one in red starts first).

         I join them just in front of the stage. "This dance is easy," the one in red tells me, "Because it makes sense. It's like you're a woodcutter."

         Of course, I know very little about being a woodcutter, but-

         "First you put your hands together like this, and swing them across, see, you're cutting the wood."

         "You do it twice," the girl in pink chimes in.

         "Then, like this," the girl in red continues making the gestures for me as she describes then, "You put the axe aside. Then, pick up the wood. Reach down toward the ground and then up, across, over your shoulder."

         "You're putting it in the basket on your back. It's not like a big, huge trunk."

         "Then the other side. The, uh, left side. Right, then left."

         "Then wave the back of your hand over your forehead! Right, then left! You're wiping off the sweat! Then you pick your axe up and start all over again!" The girl in pink is excited by the whole procedure and jumps up and down. "Try it! C'mon!"

         "Try" is something I'm capable of. I certainly can't say there's anything the slightest bit impressive or graceful about it. The way the girls are laughing as I try to dance seems to back up my assessment of my questionable abilities.

         "Never let anyone say that you're not a good sport," Kayta eventually makes his way back to my side to tell me.

         "I've gotta have a few things going for me," I laugh.

         He sighs and sticks his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, don't we all."

 

         While the dancing is wrapping up, the outdoor area is rearranged for us to be able to sit and eat. The local cuisine seems mixed between completely unfamiliar things and items I can generally recognize or know in another form. There are dumplings with meat inside them, some kind of strange rolled cake with a very long name (Raisin tries to explain to me how they make it by pouring batter over a sort of spit, but I can't quite get the idea to solidify in my head), a bitter kind of tea, but also apple cider, a few varieties of sausages, and maple syrup, which I've never had before, but everyone here seems to make a big deal out of.

         Kayta is obedient to the powers that be for the rest of our encounter, even passing up several easy opportunities to heckle the mayor during a post-meal stroll around town where he tells me lots of dull things about 7's various wood-related industries- dull because he already mentioned most of them earlier and he doesn't seem to have suddenly come up with any more exciting ways of passing them on. It's feels kind of funny to have a stop that began with so much- nearly too much- excitement wear down like a top spinning slower and slower until it finally falls down.

         I ask Kayta if he knows how Haakon's sister is doing in general (not when I'm here making everything worse again) and he admits that he doesn't really know. Because Haakon was her only family, Kayta tried to give her a little money when he came home after the Games to help her out, but she's only fourteen and unless he actually took her in or something, there was no keeping her out of the district's community home.

         "She's not very happy with Kayta," Raisin tells me, "And, you know, it's harder to help people who don't want to be helped."

         I offer my services if either of them think of something later on, but, all the while, I know it's probably a lost cause.

         Mayor Bacon doesn't leave town to head back to the station with my group, but thanks me there, "For being a very welcome guest." For what it's worth, I also offer him my best.

         "I'll be seeing you Capitol-side," Kayta waves me off. "Have fun with the rest of this thirteen-ring circus."

         "It was nice to meet you," Raisin also concludes.

 

         "I have my work cut out for me," Tosca sighs to herself as she watches back some of the footage from 7.

         "You like having it that way, boss," one of the cameramen counters.

         "Heh," she chuckles, "I suppose you have a point."

         The trees recede as I turn in for the night. In the morning, any trace of forests is gone.

         I can see 6 coming long before we're officially within its boundaries. There's an orange-gray haze hanging over it and a stretch of clouds- more like one giant cloud of over-stretched wool, really- looming over its epicenter and reaching out in every visible direction. It's ominous. It's the place Sparrow (and Bailey) spent every day of their lives until the left it to die. I feel the same as I did when I asked Sparrow about it. There has to be something in 6 worth living for, but it isn't the scenery.

         "Breathing that in can't be good for you," Aulie draws alongside me. "No wonder so many of the Sixes are such poor runners."

         "They have two victors though."

         "Teejay, if you recall, didn't exactly do a lot of running."

         Sapped and sallow, Teejay's yellow-brown face appears in my mind as he looks roughly at this moment- these days. But I can remember back beyond that. How Teejay dug a pit as a trap. How he threw his voice (a trick he refuses to perform since, to much Capitol disappointment). He wasn't good at making his kills quick or clean, but deep pits - think fish in a barrel.

         Mr. Bronze thought dehydration might get him before a showdown the way he kept throwing up. Teejay Atticus didn't run. He waited.

         The first turning point in Sunny Lightfoot's Games came when she fainted exactly three minutes and thirty-four seconds after the gong rang. She had been ranked twenty-one out of twenty-four going on. While she lay in the clover, she jumped up to number sixteen out of sixteen. No one had paid enough attention to notice that she wasn't dead.

         And, like her name promised, when she arose, Sunny could run. When she woke up she began to transform into an almost entirely different person. She acted progressively stranger and stranger until her eventual victory, at which point the consensus among my circle back home was that she was all but completely detached from reality.

         The gap lasted longer between her win and her crowning than any victor before or since, but when they finally got her back in front of the cameras she was placid and pretty again and stated that most of the Games had been such a blur to her that she didn't remember the details. I don't know if it was brain surgery or pills or some kind of talking therapy that did it, but it taught me that doctors in the Capitol are _amazing_.

         "Two victors to meet this time," I say pointlessly. Sparrow seemed to regard Sunny as nice, if not particularly helpful.

         "It'll be your own miniature victors party?" Aulie guesses.

         "You think it'll be fun? …Should I bring a host-and-hostess gift?"

         "Maybe," Aulie grins.

         "Hey," Spring comes to retrieve me to change me into my proper outfit for the day, "We have bright colors for you since it's so gray here. You're going to pop! It'll look great on camera."

         "Okay," I agree, though I wonder what they'd say if I didn't. 'Fine, go do your own hair and wear your own plain clothes and not a dab of makeup?' I couldn't look worse than I did during the Games. I'm not beauty queen victor anyway. It wouldn't be one of those "hideous secrets" of stars caught without their makeup things.

         The general theme of the outfit appears to be blue. A deep, cobalt blue, like the dress I wore when I was crowned victor. There are hairpins shaped like birds with little forked tails- swallows.

         We have swallows in 4 for part of the year. They're migratory. They come into 4 (and parts of 1 and maybe 3, I think) and when they go…I don't know where they go. 11? That's the direction they take.

         Victors are the swallows who go to the Capitol.

         They go, they come back.

 

         We slide to a stop in 6 and only one of their two victors is present and waiting for me- Sunny Lightfoot, in a lacy white dress with a daisy-shaped balloon in her hand.

         She runs right up to me with her arms outstretched to hug me, but holds off at the last possible moment, which looks kind of comical. "May I?" she inquires. Her teeth are movie star white, stark against her syrupy skin.

         "Uh, go on," I encourage her.

         It's probably good that she asked because this is the kind of tight, overly-familiar hug that should come with forewarning. …She smells like medicine. Like talcum powder. Like laundry soap. Smells that, to me, mean "mother." …Not any mother. Mama.

         I hold on, digging my fingers into the softness of her dress.

Apple taps me on the shoulder, which I think is meant to warn me that it's getting weird, but, oh- And Sunny hasn't tried to pull away.

         I will be good.

         I let go.

         Mayor Cambridge, a sort of pudgy, middle-aged woman, comes up and gives me what I've come to see is sort of a standard issue "welcome victor" speech. This is one of the friendlier iterations I've been subjected to though.

         In a sort of private aside with Sunny occupying the cameras' time with some chatter with Aulie and Apple where she seems to express some admiration of…something about me, the mayor even _thanks me_ for befriending Sparrow. "I hope you won't allow your experiences in the arena to prematurely color your impressions of Six," she says. It's practically an apology.

         I shake my head, "No, of course not. I should be asking you the very same thing about Four and me. There's really no such thing as equal here, because I lived and she died, but, you know, I know, it's because of the Games. I didn't want to kill her and I don't believe she wanted to kill me." In the recap I was sure I saw it. So much hesitation. And that the darts went with some kind of chemical agent, not a deadly poison, she couldn't have known. It was just some sick Gamemaker's joke. She wanted to kill me quick, not horribly. She wanted to do it without having to look me in the eye.

         "You victors impress me," Mayor Cambridge admits, "I think too often we don't give young people enough credit. …and then, on the other hand, we might expect too much." I can't say what's on her mind over this. The differences between Sunny and Teejay?

         "We'll pick up Teejay at the hospital," Sunny approaches.

         "Hospital?" my brow furrows, "Is he okay?"

         "He's…" she lets out a nervous little laugh, "He's the same as usual. You could even say he's volunteering. …in a way. …Giving us experience."

         "He's an addict, Mags," Tosca interjects, "Morphling. It's a big problem out here. Just don't mention it."

         "But it isn't a bad thing to have to go to the hospital," Sunny speaks up again, like she thinks her remark will have unsettled me (do I look bothered?), "I help out there all the time. I didn't want to disappoint anyone if there were a change in schedule so I didn't mention it to any patients, but I think there are some people there who would be really cheered by seeing you."

         She's sweet. I'm sure she's wonderful at the hospital. If her bedside attitude is anything like this, I know I would be cheered to have her taking care of me. (One victor needs care from the hospital, the other gives it- everyone comes out of the arena different)

        

         It isn't far to the hospital. Unlike the doctor's place back home, this three-story building really does align with the concept of a hospital in my mind. "This is the largest medical facility in the outer districts," Sunny informs me, "Along with the this-and-that related to transport, building and maintaining cars and trains and special refrigerator cars and such, we manufacture medicine here."

         That's where the prevalence of morphling addiction comes from, I guess. They're making it here. They're probably testing it here.

         Sunny remembers that the balloon she's been carrying was meant as a present for me. "I can't make anything good like Pal," she admits, biting her lip, "I don't have any special skills."

         "That doesn't matter," I insist, "It's still really nice of you." For now I give the balloon to Apple for safekeeping. I don't want to accidentally pop it.

         "…Whenever I can," she says, "I want to be nice. I want to help people."

         "You're great at helping people," Mayor Cambridge attests. "You've done a lot already, Sunny."

         She smiles a little, but her face stays taut with worry. Maybe it's because all her tributes so far have died. Not that there's much she could've done about it, but it has to be harder when you're clearly so sensitive. She killed to stay alive and I look at her and imagine that she never wants to see another person hurt again. She probably thinks that she can never do enough.

         I don't think there's anything I can say that will change things in a large way, but I might be able to help in the moment. "Sparrow told me you were really nice," I address Sunny, "She was right."

         "…You talked about me?"

         "I wanted to know what victors were like. What it was like to have a victor helping you out before the Games. And Sparrow was nice enough to tell me." She also thought Sunny wasn't very helpful, but that doesn't matter now. What this is about is that Sunny Lightfoot cares. And caring matters.

         We walk up through a little garden of roses, mainly white and yellow, though speckled here and there with grayish dust, up to the doors of the hospital. I think Sunny is blushing a little, but she keeps turning her face further and further away from me when I try to gauge her expression.

         I stop trying to look when I notice a tiny jerk in her chest and shoulders that makes me realize she might be crying. She might be trying to stop. To keep me from seeing. Both. Certainly the last thing I want to do is hurt her. The world has already hurt her enough.

         A gaggle of nurses (something about their costumes, err, uniforms, reminds me of geese) swarm out of the doors with a wreath of carnations that they put on my head. They shake my hand and say hello and chatter at Sunny, forming themselves up around the two of us (if there were tears, Sunny has stopped them) and prevailing upon Aulie to snap several photographs of this arrangement.

         "We had to come outside to meet you so that we could be loud," one girl, probably about my age, laughs. "When we go inside, we'll all have to be good and keep the noise level down."

         "Of course," I promise.

         "If you're willing, we'd like you to come visit the children's ward," another nurse, older, with the tiniest curls in her black hair, addresses me.

         "We'll pick Teejay up along the way," the first girl confirms the unasked question implied by Sunny's open mouth.

         "Mags," Sunny looks to me instead, "If you'd like?"

         "Certainly," I agree.

         I have to be stopped from holding the door open for the cameramen. "Go on in ahead!" Aulie laughs at me. "I've got this, dear!"

         I catch sight of one of the nurses hanging back and possibly flirting with Aulie's favorite cameraman. …not sure if there's also something to "get" there.

         Inside, the hospital echoes with many small, quiet noises. Some of the nurses break away from our group to get back to work. I wave at everyone I see, which I hope will be well received. Some people (some patients, some doctors, some presumably family of patients) wave back. Some people ignore me. Either way is fine with me. I guess the ones who don't wave just won't be broadcast to the nation (not to say that everyone who does will either, but-).

         By the time we've reached the elevator (the first elevator I've ridden in outside of the Capitol), our group has narrowed down to Sunny, Mayor Cambridge, three nurses, and my people. Although we take the elevator just to the second floor, the ride makes me a bit dizzy. "I'm not used to it," I say.

         "I'm sure I'd be worse on a boat," the mayor kindly backs me up.

        

         Teejay Atticus is sitting in a folding chair in the hall, thumbing through a book that appears to be entirely photographs of Capitol cityscapes. "Hey, Tee!" Sunny makes a funny pointing gesture at him that's apparently friendly (I've never seen it before) and he looks up.

         "Girls," he says. He smiles, but the focus of his eyes is kind of fuzzy.

         "Tee," Sunny kneels down beside him and waves her hand back toward me, "This is Mags, remember?"

         "Yeah," he agrees (remembers?), "Yeah. Mags, hi."

         "Nice to meet you." I lean down closer to him. It's hard to know what to ask him. No one coached me on any special protocol though, so I figure I should continue to act normal. "Are you going to come say hi to the kids with us?"

         "Nah," he shrugs, "I'm taking a break. Letting Sunny do all the work, unless, that is, you specially need me."

         "Oh, well." I'm not going to press him. He does look pretty settled in and comfortable where he is.

         "Now, if you have a good gumbo recipe you could pass along, that would definitely be appreciated and I'd have to be sure and pay you back properly," he muses. He yawns.

         "Maybe you do?" Sunny gives me a funny look. We leave Teejay behind in his chair and pause just outside the ward door.

         "Sure, but he doesn't have to pay me back for it." Does "gumbo" really mean gumbo in this context? Is this some kind of code? There's nothing for me but to keep on going as I have, but on some level, there seems to be something going on with both of 6's victors that I have absolutely no grasp on. They're both…I don't know. Something.

         Whatever it is, the sick kids in the hospital ward aren't. I shake hands and look at crayon drawings and take photographs with them with the same hospital camera the nurses brought and Sunny sings a song about a train and fails horribly to teach it to me through no fault of her own. I learn that when Teejay comes, he blows up balloons and twists them into shapes- animals mostly. Once he made a train. A sallow-faced boy shows me a picture as proof. The general consensus regarding Teejay- not that I ask specifically, but some of the kids wonder about where he is- is that he is just as kind as Sunny, though often very drowsy and not able to cope very well in the face of any significant medical trouble.

         Overall, there's an impressively positive attitude prevailing here. I hope it's not entirely unwarranted. I hope that the availability of medicine means they are getting what they need. The things I see- the IVs and machines and the thick charts I try not to glance at- tell me these sicknesses are serious. The reapings aren't the only way your world can come tumbling down.

         Mayor Cambridge checks her watch. We wrap things up. According to the curly-haired nurse I can expect a thank you card from the kids in about a week or so (or however long it takes to get it to me- I advise that they send it to me via Apple to try and circumvent some of the extensive inter-district mail and transport issues- to the best of my knowledge, victors are the only ones who can even receive inter-district personal mail, although it's still subject to the censorship controls).

         Heading out through the hospital by another path, I see tiny babies in incubators. Not that I know much about medicine anyway, but I would practically be afraid to hold them, let alone try and treat them. "They're born addicted," Sunny tells me. "It's when the mothers are using…"

         "Oh," I whisper. I never knew such a thing. Even in my small visit, I have begun to see things that make me understand Sparrow's feelings about her home. 6 is a sad place.

         We go out to our ride to find Teejay lounging in the backseat. "Time for the moment of shame," he sighs.

         "Mind your manners, Mr. Atticus," Tosca scolds him.

         "Ain't got nothing left to mind for," he shrugs.

         Sunny's face pales. She climbs in beside Teejay and makes him sit up straight. "There's always something else they can use to hurt you," she says. She looks and sounds deadly serious. She makes room for me and I join her. Over my shoulder, I glance back at Tosca, who appears a bit smug.

         "Onward then," Mayor Cambridge manages things with more dullness than before. My visiting is one thing. I don't imagine she relishes this either.

 

         Unlike in the other districts, I arrive before the crowd. But I'm not meant to go out before the crowd. I sit down with Apple and Aulie at a little table. Apple pours me some juice. I sip it half-heartedly.

         I offer some to the peacekeeper watching over us, but he politely turns me down.

         Sunny and Teejay accompany their mayor out to…get in place? Set up the last few things? Irish is prevailed upon to come and put some makeup on Teejay because Tosca thinks he needs it.

         I can tell that people are cuing up and taking their places (or just milling about- I don't know, maybe for the crowd there are no proper places) by the gradual increase in noise. I'm given a five-minute warning, then Apple, Aulie, and I are on deck until Mayor Cambridge calls for me.

         On cue, I come out onto the stage and my companions follow me.

         There are two chairs on the stage for Sunny and Teejay. Only Teejay needs the chair, but I think they're trying to pretend there's nothing funny going on with it by making them match.

         Teejay's head is hanging forward. His eyes are closed. Maybe he's sleeping (I've been given the impression he sleeps a lot). He's resting at least (is he just cocky like Kayta and choosing to ignore the mayor?). Sunny reaches over- she tries to do this discreetly- and feels his wrist. It dawns on me that (Sunny is a volunteer nurse) it's for his pulse.

         …What would happen if it turned out that Teejay Atticus was dead on the stage?

         I don't get much time to indulge in these bad thoughts. Sunny gives a little sigh of relief. Teejay is fine, for certain relative values of fine. He's not dead. He doesn't require medical attention. The mayor can go on talking and I can go on half-listening, looking around at the crowd.

         And then my eyes fall on him. There's a family to his left- a mother and father, I assume, three youngish kids- the family of Bailey, the boy who came to the Games along with Sparrow, that she didn't have any special feelings for (because she had the self-control to tamp down her feelings, to do the things that should've led to her victory). But it's not Bailey's father or either of his brothers who is the "him" that staggers me. It's Sparrow's father, a haggard-looking man, who might not have fifteen years on my father, but looks it.

         He is standing on his own, but aside from that detail, he is very much like Teejay. His eyes are sunken. His face is pale-ish and yellow (Teejay's face has a strange tone, its originally earthy darkness altered by however many years of morphling abuse) and I wonder if it's drink or morphling or sickness or something else that's given him that look. It's not just grief for Sparrow. I can't remember all the details of what she told me in the arena, but she didn't regard him very highly. I have the impression he had washed out of mainstream life to a certain degree years before she was reaped.

         But her death can't have helped any and he stares back at me with dark, searching eyes.

         I'm worried that I'll never get those eyes out of my mind.

         I stumble through my pre-written speech, botching it the worst that I have anywhere, although, fortunately, the bar for my speech performances hasn't been set very high. "Follow instructions" are my watchwords here, so I keep saying what I'm supposed to say and forcing myself to smile when I'm supposed to smile.

         But Sparrow's father keeps watching. He can't take his cavernous brown eyes off of me.

         As soon as everyone is politely clapping, covering up the smaller sounds onstage, Apple takes the opportunity to try and set me straight. "Mags, your expression is ghastly. What are you staring at?"

         "That's Sparrow's father." I can't be so rude as to point at him, so I hope Apple will figure out who I mean.

         "That sick-looking man?"

         She's got it. "Yeah."

         "Is there something you need to tell him? Because there might be the time to arrange it backstage." I love her for her willingness to hustle for me in whatever sort of ridiculous situation I get myself into (though maybe by Apple's standards, these situations hardly qualify as ridiculous- I can't say I have much of an idea what her average day is like when she's not running around with me).

         "…I don't know. I'm not sure there's anything to say." The crowd is quieting and I stop speaking to allow the mayor her final few words before my reckless emotions are broadcast to the entire crowd.

         I walk offstage between Apple and Sunny, following the mayor. Teejay doesn't get up and no one bothers him. We just leave him dozing there. I look back a few times, but no one comments on it and Sunny and Mayor Cambridge must certainly know him better than me, so…

I can't shut myself up about it. "…You sure about him?" I touch Sunny's shoulder.

         "I can't carry him," she shrugs. "And I don't really have any authority over him anyway. I'll make sure the people from the hospital know where he is, but he doesn't have any family anymore either, so it's really…" She holds up her hands hopelessly. "All the help I want to give him isn't any use if he won't dial back his using enough to decide whether or not to accept it."

         Apple turns back toward me, away from Mayor Cambridge. "She's going to get Avert, Mags."

         "…that's his name?" I frown. I didn't say I wanted this. I'm not sure I shouldn't refuse it quickly and adamantly while I still have time, but at the same time…

         "Av and I were schoolmates," the mayor volunteers. "…But, of course, he was different then." She tries not to make it seem like such a bad thing with her additional remark: "We all were, though."

         "Where can I take Mags next?" Sunny smiles at the mayor.

         "In the meantime? Anywhere on the approved list," Cambridge waves a dismissive hand at her and marches away to bring Sparrow's probably reluctant father to meet the girl who killed his daughter. Clearly, I have a bad habit of taking an interest in things I should let pass.

         "Let's go watch 'em paint cars," Sunny suggests with vigor. The idea obviously appeals to her.

         "And what kind of place do they do that, dear?" Apple regards her with calm interest.

         "There's a big factory warehouse. I know things are different, like they do them special, for particularly fancy Capitol cars, we just put down the base coat and send them on to specialists in, I don't know, One maybe, but this is where all the regular district vehicles get done up." Her enthusiasm doesn't flag. "My da-" Until this hesitation comes. "A friend of my dad's used to work there." But this misstep doesn't entirely derail her. "When I was little, I would go watch them spray paint the cars after class. Me and…my friend, Rae Proudfeather. It was her dad who had the job there."

         I don't get the feeling Mr. Proudfeather moved on to a better job. But I never know whether or not to broach these sorts of things with people. Even the mention of her friend gives Sunny some trouble. Maybe Rae is her Aoko, another lost tribute. Maybe Rae died some other way. Maybe they just aren't friends anymore. Coming home from the Games shakes up your relationships. We've talked, but it's not as if I've spent any significant time with Azzie and Tylina.

         "Do we…walk there?" I venture down the safe path.

         "We could, but," Sunny looks at Apple's teetering mock-fishbone shoes, "I think it'd be better to get someone to take us."

         "I'll handle that," Apple trots off.

         Sunny looks around, eying every camera to see that none are trained on us and, as a matter of fact, only one appears to be on, with Tosca directing the man in charge of as he takes some District 6 filler footage. For all I know, it won't even be edited into the Tour programming, but saved for some other time that it's needed. The Victory Tour isn't Tosca's only television project. Sunny turns her head sharply toward me and leans in a bit. I resist the urge to lean away in turn. "Mags, you know, I-" she starts to say.

         There's a pause of only a few seconds as I wait to hear her continue, but it has the feel of a cautious eternity.

         Apple waves to us to come join her. She's got everything worked out as quick as that. Mayor Cambridge probably left instructions with the driver anyway.

         "…Don't give it any mind," Sunny looks into my eyes and then walks past me toward Apple.

         But I do "give it mind." There's nothing I can do, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to know what she was going to say. I am even less content after this exchange than after expressing my reckless desire to meet Sparrow's father. I keep this to myself as we make the short drive to the car-painting factory.

         "Hey, Miss Lightfoot!" the man at the door greets her.

         "Hello, Harry," she smiles. "We're gonna show Mags how they do the cars."

         "You should get them to let her paint one," he suggests.

         "I would do a bad job," I insist, laughing.

         He slides open the heavy door and lets us in. Aulie, as usual, hangs back to chat. A feel a pang of curiosity regarding what he discusses with all these unfamiliar people (men mostly) while I'm not around.

         "Long time no see," a female worker calls to Sunny. She receives lots of other similarly friendly jibes as she shows me around. She fits in here just as well as she did at the hospital.

         "I don't want this to come off weird, but I probably can't help it," I preface my feelings. "I'm really glad that you turned out okay after your Games. …Back home we weren't all that sure you'd be able to right yourself again after that."

         She looks…not offended, but bemused. I don't understand why, but I'll take it. "Well, thank you for being concerned back then on my behalf. I needed some peace and quiet and tranquilizers for a while," she laughs at the tranquilizers bit, "And then it was important to come home and be left alone."

         "Being home and having it be quiet was important to me too," I muse. It can't be said that our experiences were entirely dissimilar.

         A couple of workers show us how they put racing stripes on some of the cars for local use just for the fun of it. They're not racing cars like the souped up things they seem to crash for fun in the Capitol, but there aren't any regulations against it. Sunny seems happy. "You're a good excuse to come here," she admits to me. "It brings back good memories."

         "With Rae?"

         "Yeah," she nods, "Rae got killed in a train accident before I came home from the arena. They told me it was because she wasn't getting enough sleep at night sitting up worrying about me having gone crazy. It was rough to find out about it. What I did in the Games was too much for my mom too. She had to be institutionalized, actually. But at least I was able to check her into a place in the Capitol where they'll take really good care of her. …So, there's a part of me that remains in the Capital…and a part of Rae that lives on in me."

         Someone points out that Apple has walked through a spot of wet paint and is leaving yellow heel prints all over the warehouse floor. She looks befuddled. Workers laugh.

         "I know I'm really lucky to have my dad," I deliver a terse reply, wondering. "…How did Rae's dad take all that sadness?"

         "He quit his job painting cars. I think he was headed into the gutter really- didn't think he had anything to live for- but I hired him to come work as my gardener." She sighs. "He stayed out of trouble for a while. I thought he was doing okay. Then he jumped in front of a train and killed himself."

         I'm silent. It's awful. There is happiness in District 6, certainly, but it's surrounded by grime in the sky and drug abuse and broken people and parents. "That's the father of your tribute I asked to see," I say.

         "I know," she replies.

         Apple rejoins us, having cleaned up her shoes and then taken a call from Mayor Cambridge. "I hope you ladies are hungry, because it's time for all of us to go eat."

         "I let them put up a tent in front of my house," Sunny's demeanor reflects her name once more.

         "What about Sparrow's father?"

         "Ms. Cambridge said that he's agreed to eat with us. You shouldn't let it work you up too much, Mags," she fusses, "I hardly get the impression he's the sort to beat you up over it."

         But he might have been a better father if he were.

         "Harry back there is going to sell me some vintage rims," Aulie brags on our way to 6's Victor's Circle (the name informs the general layout of the "village").

         "Harry's such a wheeler-dealer," Sunny rolls her eyes.

         "It's a…good deal though…I think," Aulie answers.

 

         There are four circular tables set up under the tent in front of Sunny's prim, Capitol-styled house. Mayor Cambridge hasn't arranged for Avert to sit at my table, so I go to speak with him while allowing other people to go ahead with their eating.

         "You're a funny little fish," he looks at me. He doesn't frown; he doesn't smile.

         "I'm really sorry about what happened to Sparrow." I realize I'm tugging on the fabric of my dress, so I fold my hands to stop myself.

         He points at the swallow-shaped pins in my hair. "We didn't name her right, I guess. She weren't a swallow- she didn't come back. She were prettier than a sparrow though. It ain't your fault really. That she died. It happened in a bad way, but she did what nearly everyone here wants to do- she up and flied away."

         "But," I stammer, "Sh-she was smart. She wasn't afraid to do whatever needed to be done. I probably wouldn't have even made it without her. She could've won."

         "She could've," he agrees, "And in that case, it's beyond me to even imagine what she would've done. I never understand that girl too well. I wasn't too much of a father. But it's not your fault in any way that really matters. Where she's gone, they forgive. And in Six, the way to live is to forget."

         "Are you going to be okay?" I think of Sunny's mother, of Rae's father.

         "I'll be the same. I'll live. I'll try and forget."

         This close he smells a little like liquor.

         "You try and do the same," he brightens, albeit quite fractionally, "Thanks for the dinner. I love chicken fry."

         "Take leftovers home then." What else can I do for him? I don't think he would accept anything more anyway. "If anyone asks, tell them I told you to. But," my hands have come apart and I worry the dark blue fabric once more, "I'm not going to try to forget. I won't think of it all the time, but I think it's important to remember. Someone has to. I'll remember everything that I can as long as I can."

         I take a deep breath. "I think Sparrow would have done the same thing. …She was my friend."

         Avert shakes his head. He may disagree, but he's not going to argue about it. "Thanks again for the chicken fry," he says.

         I take my seat between Apple and Sunny. Teejay comes out from his house across the circle to sit at Sunny's right. The food is good. We talk and eat and enjoy the warmth of heaters lit against the chill of the coming night. Teejay falls asleep at the table with his face on his plate. At least he's emptied it first.

         Sunny accompanies my group back to the train station even though she could've easily said goodbye to me on her doorstep. She scuffs her toe on the cement. "I wish I could ask to come along with you," she sighs.

         "I'd take you if I could," I assure her.

         "Not everyone in Six forgets, you know. I promise."

         "Huh?"

         "I…only listened in a little." She has the good grace to look embarrassed.

         "Oh." I'm not all that offended. "Well, I figured as much."

         "Take care of yourself. And your father."

         Tosca is yawning as she passes us by. The cameras are all packed up.

         "Thank you for everything-" I should say "Sunny." I say nothing instead. She gives me a hug. Remembering doesn't mean you mention it aloud.


	4. Part I, Chapter IV

         I can hear the Woodcutters' Dance music from the moment I leave my compartment in the morning. It emanates from the sitting room (car? I can never decide about this), and I can hear it in the hall, in the dining car, and even on the tiny platform on the back of the train. When I go back into my compartment, it runs endlessly through my head.

         Eventually, I can't put up with it anymore without saying anything, which is, of course, exactly what the instigators of this silliness wanted. Spring, Irish, and the youngest-looking cameraman, who seems to have befriended them, all laugh hysterically when I burst into the room, holding their poses, which capture one of the steps of the dance. "You want to practice your dancing with us?"

         "J-just do me a favor and turn that down," I ask them. It would be different if they had just logged on to Capitol Net and looked up some generic recording of the music or a performance from some other time, but, again, of course they've found (or just have, via the cameraman) the footage of Mimi and Chiyo dancing while I struggle to follow their movements.

         "You got it, boss!" Spring salutes me and reaches for the screen controller.

         "Hey, you should watch "Events Enthusiast" today if you've got the time before we get to our stop in Five or while they're making you up or something," the cameraman suggests to me, "They've got a First Annual Hunger Games program on today that you might like. I've seen it before- it came out for the ten year anniversary of the Games."

         "Wh-huh?"

         "Because, you know, you like Jack," he explains himself, "I mean, I was only ten during his Games, so you were even littler. I thought maybe it would give you something to talk about with him."

         It's a well-meaning remark, but… "Err, thank you for letting me know." I can't sure I'm sure whether or not I want to act on it.

         I seek out Aulie and Apple's questionable expertise. "What do you think of the program 'Events Enthusiast?'"

         "Enthusiastic," Aulie grins, unhelpfully, decorated teeth shining.

         "What he means is, they have a positive spin on everything," Apple clarifies. "Which, frankly, is unrealistic, but it can be nice to watch things like that anyway as long as it's just for entertainment. It's not meant to be real news anyway."

         "I see." This leaves me better informed, but still undecided. "…I'll eat breakfast in my room."

         "Should I get someone to bring it in for you-?" Apple starts to get up.

         "No, don't worry. I can carry it just fine." I know that even if I ask, they won't let me make it. That's the job of some Avox or other. I always hope my requests don't trouble them too much. Just because it's their job doesn't mean I have to make it hard.

 

         I sit cross-legged on my bed, my tray balanced over my legs, stirring the bits of cinnamon spiced apple into my oatmeal, staring at the darkened screen across the room. It took some trial and error, but I was able to find and read a digital programming schedule. "Events Enthusiastic Remembers: First Annual Hunger Games" will begin at the top of the hour. Watch or don't watch?

         Well. I can always turn it off, right? Cut myself short, just like Kayta's more detailed assessment of Jack which never reached me.

         I turn on the show.

         The host is a very bombastic young man with slicked back cobalt hair. Glitter sparkles on his eyelids when he blinks. It's obvious that, well, not that people in the Capitol were necessarily hugely excited about the Tenth Games, but that whoever's in charge of that kind of thing (the president? the Head Gamemaker?) wanted them to be.

         No amount of later commentary can completely obscure how sparse and grim the First Games were. The tributes don't pass through the city in open chariots; horses pull them around in cages for the people to see. There's lots of shouting and it doesn't look pleasant, though this program has edited this out, allowing for the host to speak over it. Just as the Games are something lesser, the Capitol itself also shows the scars of the recent war. The people are dressed just the slightest bit less ostentatiously. In the distance I catch sight of damaged buildings on the usually pristine skyline.

         More rebels died in the war than Capitol citizens. Double the amount, they say. District 13 was destroyed completely. But, to the victor go not only the spoils, but also the choice of whether or not to treat the losers with mercy.

         We get to learn now how long the Capitol can hold a grudge.

         The host backtracks to show segments of the reaping. The very first reaping. There are many more Peacekeepers in evidence than there are now in every district but 2. Which isn't to say that in 2 they're any less upset by the whole thing than anyone else. However, because of the eventual winner, the show is more interested in 1 than any other place. The man who comes to call the names- I'm not sure it's proper at this point to call him an escort- is tall and eerie in an outfit of black and blue with glowing white decorations. "Give us your sons," he recites some strange poem before he calls the names, "Give us your daughters."

         Jack Umber is the first tribute reaped in the First Annual Hunger Games. In reality, this determined nothing. In retrospect, it seems strangely meaningful.

         He doesn't appear to have any parents. People are upset, but no one makes any special fuss over the fact that it's him in particular. He walks up to the Capitol's go-between with that shocked, empty look, moving like he's under a spell, that has become so familiar in the years since. Many tributes ascend the stage like Jack Umber. There is little special about him here. He was younger than I am. He looks young. There's a childishness in his face that isn't there anymore. His green eyes seem much wider.

         Those people in 1, who said little for Jack, cry and scream for the girl who is called. This was going to be hard from the start.

         "Did you think you were going to die?" the host asks Jack in the present day.

         "Every single one of us thought we were going to die. I mean, our lives were one hundred percent in the Capitol's hands. Even when I realized my last opponent was dead, I didn't know for sure that the Capitol would keep their promise to let the last one of us live." He wears such a mild smile while saying such a terrible thing. "I feel lucky everyday of my life."

         Indebted. Does he feel like that? That's what bothers people a bit about him back home. They'd rather he act like his being alive today was a right, not a privilege.

         But on some level, it is a privilege. The Capitol may not pick the winner, but they can chose to have anyone of the tributes be a loser. The arena is not a bell jar. The Gamemakers keep things going as it suits them. Maybe if you haven't been through the Games you can't understand that. They let me win. They let Jack win.

         In a close-up shot from the presidential address on the night of the tribute parade, Jack is looking down at the ground. He looks tired.

         The host goes on about how the Games have changed and "improved" in so many ways since then. How the tributes are coiffed and costumed beforehand and more elaborately uniformed after. How they get a chance to peek at life in the Capitol. How they're given an opportunity to train and be scored on demonstrated skills. How they're interviewed now, allowing viewers to gain some insight into them and become distinct for something not purely physical. Jack nods a lot, politely, as the host goes on over pictures that accompany all his talking points.

         If they had done all those things at the time of Jack's Games some of them might've helped him. …Or they might have altered the playing field entirely. He might have died.

         If Jack hadn't been the first victor, would being a victor be very different?

         They move on to in-Games footage.

         I stop eating.

         The girl from Twelve purposely (it looks purposely) steps from her place before the countdown ends. There weren't bombs then. She's felled with a perfect (computerized?) sniper shot. There is no bloodbath. There is barely a stone-shaped marker to be considered a Cornucopia. There is only panic and pandemonium. There are no cross-district alliances- having had no cross-district interaction before this point, there is no foundation to build them on.

         Jack doesn't even look at this district partner. He runs. He falls and scrapes his knee. He gets back up and runs again, not quite in his original direction. The girl from Eight runs into him and after they both stand, dazed, for a second, he shoves her aside.

         I didn't remember these details.

         I'm glad I don't remember the details.

         I don't want to see Jack curled up on the ground in the dead leaves. I don't want to see him trip over the body of his district partner. I don't want to see him lose his teeth. I remember these things. They're enough. They're too much.

         I don't want to see him (grapple, punch, bite, claw, struggle, strangle, cry) kill.

         I turn off the television. I can't finish my oatmeal, but no one here is going to comment on it. I drop my plates off at the kitchen service window for one of the Avoxes to take care of. It's not much, but at least no one has to retrieve them from my room. I brush my teeth and try to think of something more cheerful. I can't go to 5 and be my normal self feeling like this.

I need to talk to someone. I go looking for Aulie or Apple and find Aulie first, alone now."We're within the borders of Five now," he informs me.

         "A whole district that generates power?" I put the question to Aulie.

         "That's the specialty," he shrugs, "Most of the power for the entire nation is generated in Five. I remember learning about it in school- they use wind and the sun and water to make energy. They're creative with what they've got, I suppose."

         "It's a bit like Ten," I observe, "But rockier. Lots of space, not too many people."

         "Lowest population of all," Aulie confirms.

         On the way toward 5's town, I see one area particularly scarred by bombing. There are bits and pieces of buildings still standing. "What's that?" I point.

         His mouth tightens. "The old town," he says.

         The reason, maybe, for 5's low population.

         "Is power really the only thing out of Five?" I wonder again.

         "There's some engineering this and that. Some minerals. …I think they grow potatoes."

         My mind goes immediately to an image of Shy Evert digging potatoes out of the dirt (I don't know the specifics of how they do it, but I do know potatoes grow underground). Of course, in my imagination, she makes it look like pretty everyday business, which, even if it's not some glossy Capitol version of events, is probably more glamorous than the reality. Anyway, Shy is a victor and her talent is needlepoint. I don't think she digs up potatoes anymore- assuming she ever did. I will think about Shy now, not Jack. I will stay as focused as I can on the visit at hand and its trappings.

         My outfit for 5 is mostly white. A white dress with a little hood in the back. There are green leggings and tall black boots to go with it. When I pull the hood up, everyone laughs that the shape of my buns underneath it make me look like a mouse. They mean this in a nice way- that it's cute.

         "Put up your hood," Aulie urges me as we walk out and onto the platform and are immediately buffeted to by a stiff wind.

         "I don't know how much it'll help," I mumble.

         "Oh, just put it on," Aulie pulls the hood up himself.

         "Aaaaah," a tiny, breathy voice accosts me, "How cute!" Shy jogs up to meet me, her wispy blond hair trailing behind her in short pigtails. She's not as thin as she was when she won, though her many layers of clothes in whites and browns over a bright blue dress, add to that perception. "Mags!" she exclaims, "It's you!"

         She reaches out toward me and when I hold my hands out, she takes both of them. "You're so little and cute!"

         "And you're so pretty," I answer. Oh, she really is. Depending on your tastes, you could make a case for the looks of any of the female victors who came before me, but I like Shy.

"I hope that you like visiting Five," she keeps hold of my right hand, leading me along, "It's a kind of quiet place, but that never bothered me."

         A tough-looking, middle-aged man approaches us, "Mike McRonsenburg," he introduces himself, tipping his gray cap to me, "Chief Engineer and, uh, mayor, I suppose. Welcome to District Five."

         "Thank you for having me."

         "We thought we'd take you on a little driving tour." He coughs. There's a bit of grit in his tone. His cough isn't the same type that Shy exhibited during her Games. I'm not picturing him spitting out blood at any moment. "I've got a work truck rigged up for it." He points over his shoulder with his thumb to where a sandy-colored vehicle is waiting. It has a large bed set up to seat, presumably, workers, more than carry a lot. There's a sort of yellowish tarp stretched over the top on a lightweight frame to serve as some kind of sunshade for whoever sits in the back. "There's not a lot to see in town, it's pretty dinky, but I don't think I'm exaggerating much if I say that Five's got some of the most beautiful natural scenery around."

         "If I'm not wrong, I believe some of the land that lies within Five's borders was once a protected area on account of its rare looks," Apple pipes up.

         "You are exactly right, ma'am," McRonsenburg replies, punctuating his response with a funny clicking noise made with his tongue.

         Apple seems pleased to be right.

         "Now, I'll be driving this truck myself, so there won't be any threat of funny business," he continues on and I wonder if this is a reference to the stunt Kayta pulled back in 7, because even if no one specifically informed Chief Engineer McRonsenburg about it our stop in 7 ran on television last night and I can't imagine that none of Kayta's troublesome wildness leaked out.

         Shy gives me an idea of what they might have seen. "Mac doesn't drive like a maniac," she promises me. She's obviously pretty familiar with McRonsenburg to call him by a nickname.

         "In the Capitol, people have to be properly licensed to drive a car," Apple tells her.

         "Oh, Kayta'd surely fail that," she nods sagely.

         Unscheduled trips probably didn't make the show, but reckless victor driving, why not? It probably fits right into Kayta's public image. He's freewheeling and that's appealing- in a certain way, to a certain demographic.

         "So you up for it?" McRonsenburg asks. I guess if I didn't want to, he'd offer something else?

         "Let's go," I cheer.

         Aulie hops up into the truck first to help the rest of us up after him. I think it's partially practicality and partially showing off. Aulie is the biggest person here and he's in competition with McRonsenburg for the most muscular (it's hard to say between them, though there's a difference from McRonsenburg's worker physique and Aulie's workout nut style). One of the cameramen will take a seat up front beside McRonsenburg to capture the scenery and another will ride in the back with our small group. Aulie helps the man in back move his equipment; then gives a hand to Tosca. She's an imposing woman, but beside him, she seems less physically threatening- then she catches my eye and gives me a look that reminds me how little that part of the equation matters.

         It's not fair, it really isn't, but I just don't like Tosca. She bugs me. Is it that she's smug? Because she is kind of smug. It's… I don't know.

         Aulie practically picks up Apple, just to mess with her of course. "You big ox," she flails her hands against his chest. One of the cameras is (fortunately?) capturing all of this. I catch the cameraman's eye and he turns his lens toward me. I waggle my eyebrows and roll my eyes. There's some footage for them to play around with.

         "Miss Shy?" Aulie asks for her.

         "Oh, oops," she releases my hand and holds out both of hers for Aulie to grab. He scoops her up and her dress swings around so that I can see she has frilly bloomers on underneath, maybe on account of the cold weather. "Hee hee," she giggles, both feet (dark boots with spats) steady on the truck bed. "Let's do that again sometime," she smiles at Aulie.

         "And then Miss Mags," Aulie yanks me up and rather than setting me down, swings me over his shoulder.

         "Hey!"

         He walks over and raps his knuckles against the truck's rear window. "We're all in and ready to go, Mr. McRonsenburg." The style team will probably join us for the later goings-on in town.

         "Make him put me down," I pout in Apple and Shy's direction.

         "But you look so cuuuute like that," Shy titters, "And, anyway, I saw you looking at my bloomers."

         "Wh-what?! It was an accident!" My face must be bright red if the way it feels is any indication.

         "I'll let you look again if you just ask me," she carries on, her voice almost painfully sweet.

         "Everyone is picking on me!" I say. I doubt that sighing, giving up, and acquiescing to the madness would end this any sooner. This is the footage they're going to want- me fussing, me joking, me acting mock put-upon. …Will it provoke a response from Jack? It's not just Apple making things pseudo-difficult now. …I hope that Jack doesn't think much now about those long ago days. I hope that fame and television appearances and teasing me can form at least a smokescreen, separating those desperate days from his daily life these long years past.

         Aulie puts me down. "Thank you," I mumble.

         We settle down and drive off. Tosca sits beside the cameraman, out of the sight of our future viewers. The rest of us take the other side. We quiet down as the view opens up. There are hills and pine trees and lots of weather-shaped rock formations.

         "You gotta tell 'em what they're looking at, Shy!" McRonsenburg yells out the window at the local victor.

         "I'll tell 'em what I need to tell 'em!" Shy shouts back- not angry; still smiling. "I want you to be surprised," she explains more quietly.

         I feel like Shy Evert is like the picture you see through a kaleidoscope, changing based on what you're viewing her through. What's acting and what's real? Or is it all real? People are complex. Who knows how many sides there are to her.

         "We're going into the Upper Geyser Basin. I don't know how much you know about our geothermal activity…?"

         "Not a lot," I'm honest.

         "Good," she replies, "Good."

         "…So I'm going to be surprised?" I feel cautious.

         "Keep your eyes peeled in that direction," she points, "But don't worry. I really don't think you'll be able to possibly miss it."

         "'Eyes peeled,'" Aulie repeats, "That's funny."

        

         I know it when I see it.

         Wow, do I ever. Water is shooting up into the air, white and frothy. It's like when waves crash on the rocks. Well, something like that. Because I've never seen water from the ocean streak up half as high as that.

         And it's not just for a blink of the eye. Shy was right about not missing it. It just keeps going…

         It soars and gushes for a good two or three minutes and my eyes must be huge as I watch. I know that I'm agape.

         "That's Old Faithful!" Shy explains, when the water halts its explosive escape and we've all stopped gawking. "It's the most famous thing in the district, actually," she remarks, "Then me."

         Of course, I knew about Shy and not Old Faithful, so, maybe that's the assessment of things within the district. "That's, uh, a geyser then?" The reality blows the simple definition of the word- all that I previously knew about geysers- out of the water. …Uh, so to speak.

         "Yes, it's our most famous geyser, although down here there are a whole bunch."

         "…that's really something else."

         Shy nods. A brisk wind blows her hair around her face and tugs at my hood. Having it up hasn't been bad. "The world's a pretty amazing place."

         McRonsenburg stops the truck and we sit and look down into the basin for a while and eat some weird sticky candy that Shy picked up at some place called the "Sign Shop" (it's a nickname, apparently, for the general store).

         I figure now is as good a time as any. I turn away from the scenery to face Shy. "Hey, can I ask you something I've been wondering for years?"

         "Go ahead," she invites me.

         I've been getting a better idea of what the reality of the Tour is like versus the editing. I figure that as long as it's kept mostly private between me and another victor, anything they don't like, they'll just cut, assuming it's not subversive. I don't see how this could be. It's just curiosity about Shy's life. "You were really sick during your Games, weren't you? Did you get cured afterward?"

         She seems like she expected this question. "Yeah, I had tuberculosis. If I hadn't won the Games, I wouldn't have been able to get powerful enough medicine to actually cure it. I was pretty sick. I'd probably be dead now. …But, instead, I'm cured."

         "Huh." It was sort of what I thought, but I'm still impressed. In this way, I think Shy is an outlier among victors. Certainly there's a trade-off, but I don't get the feeling that Shy would have preferred things go the other way… I know this is presumptuous, but I think she's decided her life was worth it. "Well, I'm glad you're healthy."

         "She's pretty awful ever since she got better," Mr. McRonsenburg laughs, "She comes over to my house and wakes me up at Six AM with soda bread to ask me to fix her radio before I go work at Power Control HQ."

         "You told me I could come over any time the sun was up, Mac," Shy retorts.

         "That I did!" he admits, "You were always such a quiet little girl though, Shy. I never realized that when you healthed up you'd be such a firecracker."

         "I'm making up for lost time." She flops her head to the side, leaning it on Mac's shoulder. "You never know when your time's going to be up. You never know which cough is going to kill you and which is going to save your life."

         I drag the toe of my boot through the dirt, drawing a rough, meaningless line. "My best friend at the time was the girl reaped into your Games."

         Shy thinks about this. She lifts her head back up. "The same age as you? She must've been a pretty little girl."

         "We were twelve then."

         "She had black hair maybe? Braids?"

         "Yeah, that's how she wore it into the Games. Back home she used to wear her hair, well, kind of like I do." She was reaped wearing the same hairstyle as me. It doesn't mean anything, it just is. She was the one who showed me how to put my hair up this way.

         Shy pushes some loose strands of her pale hair out of her eyes, "I was feeling pretty poorly then, so I can't say I paid all the much attention to any of the tributes who didn't scare me stiff, but, yeah, I know which one she was."

         "Her name was Aoko."

         McRonsenburg looks uncomfortable at this turn of the conversation. "Is it true that you eat seaweed in District Four?" he asks me. "That's really what makes your bread green?"

         "Yes, really," I snort at the strange, slightly pained look on his face.

         "Wow, then. Same as you said, Shy, the world is somethin' else. People are somethin' else." He gets up, "Let's go hit Plant Five for a tour."

         "I watched some stuff about Jack Umber and the First Hunger Games this morning," I admit to Apple and Aulie as we get back on our way. "I think it got me a little worked up."

         "Never you worry about Jack," Shy speaks up, "Whatever happened to him back then, he doesn't do a single thing these days that he doesn't feel like- writer of his own story and all that."

         I give a small shiver. I can't quite shake it off. "The First Games were really scary," I say.

         "They were supposed to be," Tosca answers me. "The Games still are, but not just frightening, they have to be more than that."

         "Hmm." It's interesting for her to say so.

        

The tour through Plant 5 is calm and perfunctory. Certain workers have been singled out in each sector to show me things. Apparently, those who were interested won the opportunity through a plant-wide lottery. A district-wide lottery won Plant 5 the chance to host me. I learn that there are twelve separate power plants (of a few different types) in District 5, along with Power Control Headquarters, where McRonsenburg is the boss. There's something amusing about this numbering scheme.

         From Plant 5 we drive back to town.

         The actual town that makes up the central part of District 5 puts me in the mind of a brighter-colored version of District 12. It might be somewhat less shabby or the people here just do a better job bothering to hide the worn-down parts from the public eye. There is a shop practically plastered in hand-painted signs. The name "Sign Shop" no longer seems inexplicable. There are tiny garden beds beside the doors of many of the living spaces, which seem to rise to a standard three levels. Laundry hangs out of windows to dry. I think multiple families probably occupy the spaces in a less oppressive version of what I witnessed in 8, 6, and 3. There's a ramshackle stage set up with a plain sheet for a back (backdrop?) and a ring of folding chairs around it. For all that it gives me the impression of being thrown together little more than a day ago (if not a few hours before my arrival), it is interestingly designed.

         "The boy didn't have any family," Shy tells me dryly as we stand behind the stage, blocked from view by the sheet as the cameramen find their places and McRonsenburg tests the microphone. "The girl had an assortment."

         I don't know why she doesn't say their names. The girl was Laurie Tart. I never learned the boy's name.

         "You just take it easy and you'll be all right, you know," Shy gives me some sort of advance, I suppose.

         "I'm trying," I shrug.

         A bell rings somewhere in the distance, summoning people maybe, or marking the time.

         "Now…hmm," she puts my hood back, "You need to let everyone see your face for this." She leans in close and smooths my hair. Her fingers are soft where they brush my face. "That'll do it."

         Another bell rings, closer.

         Chief Engineer-slash-Mayor McRonsenburg gets things started and calls for Shy, who takes the stage to a tiny fluttering of applause. When I follow, I am greeted somewhat more fitfully.

         As Shy said, there's no one for the boy, which isn't to say that he'll be quickly forgotten. He probably had friends. And there they are, Laurie's mother, her aunts, the brothers she played rough games with. They regard me with cool interest. I was played by Sparrow pretty much the same as Laurie. The only difference was the Sparrow liked me better, which translated into being less willing to see me hurt and to keeping me around longer. Laurie probably would've been better served to stick the Games out on her own.

         My performance is especially self-aware, probably as a result of having Jack on my mind, which is both for the better and for the worse. I speak better than I did in 6, but I feel hyper-conscious of all my small awkward tics.

         Afterward, Shy and McRonsenburg both compliment me on how I did. A table and chairs are set up on the stage and we eat there, with much of the town eating and hanging around just below us in the chairs. Some of the people come up to ask me questions and make remarks, which the powers that be (Tosca, Apple, McRonsenburg) allow. Someone tells me I should've allied with Laurie instead of Sparrow. "For my sake or for Laurie's?" I respond, which garners a bittersweet laugh.

         Understandably, Laurie's family doesn't stick around for any of this.

         Shy is pleasant enough company. She tells me about some of the things she's done in her visits to the Capitol- window-shopping, seeing the ballet, visiting a botanical garden. Once she met up with Jack there. They saw a movie and he bought her a pair of shoes. "I've only worn them twice though," she admits, "They just seem too nice to just wear on an ordinary day around here."

         McRonsenburg and Aulie get a bit drunk together and McRonsenburg tells Shy how much he loves her "just like" how he loved her father, which is the point at which she thinks we need to go home and let the volunteers start cleaning up. "In any case," she hugs me, "It was great meeting you. We'll have to do something together in the Capitol next Games season if we have any free time."

         "Yeah, of course," I agree. I don't know what being in the Capitol with free time is even like. It would be good to have someone who's willing to spend time with me and give me an idea of what I can do and what to expect.

        

         "You had a nice time in Five, didn't you?" Apple remarks back on the train, taking out her earrings to begin what must be the rather complex process for her of getting undressed and un-fixed-up to go to sleep.

         "Compared to some of the other places I've been, it was kind of relaxing." Not as relaxing as it will be when I'm back home and all this rigamarole is over though. Although I'm aware that as a victor, my life will never been quite as low-key as it was before, I can see that as the years pass, things probably will fall into some kind of pattern. Whether things will work out well or not is a combination of factors, like in any other situation. There's what I do, what happens outside my control, and what my attitude is in facing it.

         "Well, here's hoping for more relaxing stops on our Tour," Apple pats my shoulder and heads off to her quarters.

         Despite having been pinned up and even covered with the hood for half the time, my hair has managed to work itself into some tangles. I fight with it for a while before giving up (I'm just not in the mood for this) and going to sleep.

 

         I dream that Shy and I are shopping in the market back home. I buy some ordinary groceries. Shy wants to buy some kind of local jewelry and keeps asking me questions about how the various things are made. She picks up a coral pin, a bracelet with pearls, a woven headband: "Does this come from the ocean?"

 

         I wake up homesick.

         "Detour to Four on the way through?" I suggest, although I don't seriously believe we would do it. I'm just joking around. We could head south from here. If we just kept going long enough, eventually we would reach 4. Eventually we would reach the ocean.

         On the ocean, I don't know how far we would have to go to reach someplace else. There's a certain distance no ships go past on purpose. It's not just illegal, it's dangerous.

         There's a saying at home though. That staying in the harbor isn't what ships are made for.

         "I know you're missing your father and all, but you know how the trip goes," Apple says, "We're more than halfway through."

         "I know." I lean my head against the window. It leaves a smudge on the glass. I don't think Apple likes it when I do that, but I'm not doing it to bother her. I have to tell myself more seriously to stop.

         "We're going to watch the rerun of your stop in Six, Mags," Spring waves her hand, inviting me to come join them.

         "Want to watch?" I ask Apple. I'm not sure I'm really up to seeing 6 again so soon. Also, I know that I'll undoubtedly watch and be horrified at all the dumb things I said and did there.

         "Let's watch the Fall Fashion Gala instead," she counters.

         I think my eyes bug out a little.

         "You and me," she insists.

         I think she knows. I think she understands. My mouth doesn't close quite all the way. I nod very slowly. I point back at Apple as I turn toward Spring. "I'm gonna…watch that. With Apple."

         "Okay," Spring lets me go just like that, "Have fun."

         This is the first time I've been inside Apple's compartment on the train. It suits her. There is lots of green (though not only green- there are light purples and whites and tans utilized in the color scheme) and many small bangles and knickknacks hung and pinned up here and there. Apple seems to travel with very many things, but this seems like her.

         We sit together on her very puffy bed and she cues up the fashion program from her TV recording device. It aired at an inconveniently late time last night for our purposes. Back home in the Capitol, she would probably have stayed up for it. Maybe she would've watched with friends or her sister.

         On the way to District 3, Apple watches with me.

         "Oh, I like that one," she says. And, "what a funny shade of yellow." And, "I don't know, I think I'd be afraid that the top would fall off and that would so embarrassing." Not too much, just short comments here and there.

         I try to get immersed in it, but I don't know much about fashion and I don't want to ask questions I don't mean or care about just for the sake of asking.

         When the program is over, Apple switches over to some celebrity news fluff. There's a pretty, almost obsidian black-colored actress (honestly, her skin, hair, and the irises of her eyes are all this eye-entrancingly deep shade) on holding a white cat. She's talking about the zoo that's just opened in the Capitol funded largely by her generous donation. This zoo is meant to replace one that was heavily damaged in the war.

         I hear a funny chime and look around.

         Apple touches her comm-tablet device (I still can't get the proper name to stick), which was apparently the source of it. "Well," she tells me, "Time to get dressed for your excursion into Three. That should be interesting."

         "They're all interesting," I agree. …though whether that's strictly a _good_ thing…

         I catch a glimpse or two of the outlying lands through the window as we head into 3. It's one of the smaller districts, I know. The area where people actually live and work is condensed well. I'm not sure whether this land I'm seeing now is technically considered a part of 3 or not. There are various wilds in between some of the districts, while others do actually meet more or less at their borders (though the edges of the districts are largely empty, there are less than fifty miles, for instance, between us and 11 at our nearest point).

         The Capitol wants us fenced in within whatever district we belong too. It's just that some in some districts you can go further without seeing the fences. I don't remember when the fences when up exactly, but it was within my lifetime. Before that, people traveled. My mother traveled.

         There are a few people waiting to meet us when we arrive, but their victor isn't one of them. The man in charge steps forward after allowing us our short dramatic for television (maybe?) walk through the station and introduces himself as the person in charge here- Ohm Merritt, the mayor of 3, who is visibly the youngest head of a district that I've encountered. I would guess that he's about thirty. Clipped to the sides of his plain black glasses are a variety of strange lenses and other attachments. For magnification? "It's my pleasure to welcome you to District Three, Mags," he shakes my hand.

         "Thanks for having me," I say, because something can be a pleasantry, but still be the right thing to say. They have to have me, but it doesn't have to be gracious.

         "Where's Beto?" Tosca asks. There's definitely suspicion in her look, like she has some particular reason for this omission in mind.

         "He's back at his place, working," Mayor Merritt breezily whisks her question away. If he thinks he knows better than Tosca, he's probably right. Beto is of this district. Ohm Merritt is the one who has to live with him.

         "We'll pick him up later." He's firm about it. Tosca swallows this down with a sour look. I can't quite figure out why it is that I have no desire to figure her out when I've wormed my way (purposely or not) into getting to know so many other people around me. She's probably a perfectly fine person. She's just not my sort of person (and that's okay- just because you should be nice to everyone you can doesn't mean you have to like them).

         "I composed several variations on the basic itinerary and ran all of them through the official channels," the mayor looks back down at me, removing three sheets of paper from an unusual metallic-looking clipboard, "Therefore, feel free to pick whichever one you'd prefer to follow on your visit here."

         I accept the sheets of paper and skim over their contents, but I don't know how I should choose between them. One laboratory and one factory are much the same as any others to me. I have no special mechanical or technological smarts, nor, necessarily any inclinations toward one output of such of another.

         I look over my shoulder at Apple and Aulie, hoping that one of them will take discreet notice of my discomfort and assist me.

         Apple, smiling, becomes my rescuer. "Ooh," she reaches over my shoulder and gently lifts the pages out of my hand, "The Songbox development facility? We'd love to see that."

         She presses one of the papers back into Mayor Merritt's grasp. "I think this will do nicely."

         "Thanks," I whisper.

         "At your service as always, dear," she pats my shoulder.

         The mayor's personal driver, a really big, blue-eyed man, chauffeurs our group from the train station into the labyrinthine depths of 3's multi-storied clusters of homes and schools and places of work. I'm afraid if I were asked to find my own way back to the train station after all the twists and turns our path takes, I would be completely lost. The buildings and streets seem cleaner than their rough equivalents in 6 and 8 though. Whatever rougher side 3 might have, they hide it away, off their main thoroughfares.

         Through our visits to the Songbox facility (I learn they make some kind of miniature music player that's very popular in the Capitol- Aulie and Apple each have one), some place where they're doing a lot of heating small pieces of metal together (soldering? soldering.), and a special school of some sort, where I think my appearance may have been won by the students via a contest (from the way they keeping point them out to me, there seem to be many schools in 3), Mayor Merritt carries on all kinds of overlapping conversations with workers, plant heads, teachers, Tosca, Apple, and Aulie that I can barely understand. If I had grown up here, it would be different, I suppose, but were they to invite me right now, I'd definitely be too dumb to be of any special use in 3.

         Meeting up with their victor, Beto Ernst, does nothing to ease my feelings of tacky inferiority. He addresses everyone else before me and little of what he even remarks upon to these other people is straightforward. Over a dark suit, he wears what I recognize from television as a "lab coat." He's a strange mix of dressed up and disheveled. I'd like to guess that he got dressed up like this because of my visit (maybe he was told to- I'm not sure he strikes me as the type who cares much about appearances), but didn't see that as any reason not to spend time working until he was forced to meet me.

         "Hello. I hope that you are operating within your preferred parameters today, Mags," Beto says blankly. He holds his arms and looks at me over the tops of his glasses. …I am expected to reply, of course, but how…?

         "Hi." What is there to do but act as I always do? "It's nice to meet you." It would be wrong to assume off the bat from what I've seen on television that Beto and I are unlikely to have much in common or that he's going to be hard to connect with. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.

         "Yes," Beto responds unreadably stoically to my words.

         Tosca sighs and makes some kind of motion to her cameraman, which means something like "Cut the cameras," no doubt.

         I am undaunted. "District Three seems really advanced. Such a smart guy like you is obviously a perfect fit here. I bet all the kids look up to you."

         "I am…" he struggles, "Figuring infrequently in the local public eye."

         "Why don't all of us head on over to the stage set-up and you two can talk more along the way?" Mayor Merritt suggests benevolently. "We'll keep it short, Beto."

         "My stuff's on ice," he remarks. He shrugs. We squeeze back into the car together.

         "I heard that you kept on going to school after high school? In Four there isn't any school after high school, although I know some people who studied in other districts before the fences went up- some teachers and stuff. Someone told me you're writing a book?"

         "Yes," he answers shortly.

         "I love to read," Apple tries to bolster me as my words sink into the quagmire of Beto's thoughts and seemingly disappear, "Especially romance novels. …I imagine you're not writing fiction though, Mr. Ernst."

         He shakes his head.

         "After his Games, Beto went on to receive a doctorate in mechanical engineering," the mayor tells us over his shoulder.

         "It's the most advanced degree you can get, dear," Apple informs me.

         "For engineering, you must be smarter than all the rest of us in this car put together," I smile.

         "…Ah," his shoulders lift and fall again.

         Well, flattery is clearly not the way to Beto's heart.

         I am not feeling particularly comfortable as I go onstage with him. He points at the families while Mayor Merritt tests the microphone. "Ada. Petey."

         Ada's mother is already crying. I look at her; I look away from her. I stumble through my pre-prepared speech. This is not one of my best performances. District 3 doesn't seem to care much over all. They give me my token applause. It's a subdued district. People probably just want to go back to their homes or work.

         It doesn't mean that they're not upset though. These are smart enough people to know that getting mad at me is basically useless and getting mad at the Capitol might be useful in the long run, but in this moment would only be a death sentence.

         I receive precisely the proper amount of polite response. Maybe someone here has calculated a formula for it.

         Beto makes only one broadcast comment before the ceremony is concluded: "District Four gets their turn. Every district gets the victors they deserve. Enjoy," he gestures toward her, "Mags Gaudet."

         People clap just as mildly for him as for me. Mayor Merritt makes some concluding remarks and then ushers us from the stage.

There are strange, entertaining lights set up all around the table chosen for the celebratory meal. They blink and flash and flutter in strange patterns and colors (and shapes- the flashes of light seem to make shapes and I can't imagine how), but never entirely disrupt the pattern of illumination. It's mesmerizing. I do the slack-jawed yokel thing I usually save for the Capitol and stare for a while over my place setting as I'm served.

         I am seated beside Beto, as is expected. He seems content to ignore me, but that doesn't suit my style of manners. I decide that I should at least try and talk to him."So, what have you been working on? I heard they had to get your out of some kind of workspace you have in the basement of your house to come and be part of the ceremony. I'm sorry I had to interrupt your day like that."

"Speak. More. Slowly," Beto punctuates each sharp word with a jab of an ink or oil-smudged finger. There's something weird about his eyes that I was never able to notice on TV, or maybe it wasn't there before. I can't tell exactly what it is- an eye problem? The too long at sea thing?

         I backtrack on the matter of what I'd like to say. Beto has a strange way of talking that isn't entirely consistent with the district accent (he never tended to speak overmuch on air), but he seems to think pretty much the same of mine. I don't think it's just speaking too fast on my part, but slowing down could help. …I begin to wonder if he's understood much of what I've said to him since getting here at all.

"How's life?" I try.

         "I'm trying to become Dr. Frankenstein," he says. His weird eyes stay weird as he fixes them on me, hoping that I will glean something of…importance? Something meaningful, at least, from his statement, but…I have no idea what that means.

         "You…want to be…who?" I really don't want to come off rude about the whole thing. I do want to understand him, but I must be missing a significant piece or two in this equation. It has something to do with the culture of District 3, maybe. A person Beto knows that I don't, here or in the Capitol. A song maybe. A story.

         "If you don't know, you don't know. You wouldn't understand," he sighs.

         "Sorry," I say. What else can I say?

         "Not your fault," is the kindest that Beto can offer me.

         He doesn't say anything to me for the rest of the meal, but he doesn't say anything more than "yes" or "no" to anyone else either, so this hardly counts as some terrible snub.

         Instead I talk to the other district people who, via whatever available luck or favor, snagged the seats closest to me, breaking up my team around the strangely-shaped black table. There are black place settings that I initially take as abalone-set, but turn out, on further inspection to be studded with tiny bits of electronics. Do they do something or are they just decorative?

         Fez Merritt, the brother of the mayor, tells me about the girl who designed them. They were intended as a clever way of recycling some of the pieces that didn't contain any hazardous components. Their designer died in the Ninth Games. She was eighteen. Fez's fiancée.

         From the further remarks spurred by this topic, I get the impression that there are population-related troubles in Three. The promise of Hunger Games after Hunger Games without end is at odds with a desire to keep up a population damaged by the war. To a greater or lesser degree, I imagine every district has to wrangle with these issues. The odds are going to be worse for the post-rebellion generation. Less hope, less kids. I can see what the Capitol wants from Kayta and Raisin. Celebrity children from a district, not the Capitol (they already show off Capitol ones- it hasn't been enough).

         Eventually Beto speaks up enough to be allowed to beg off from the rest of the meal. Based on the little amount he served himself and all that's still left on his plate, he has barely eaten. Mayor Merritt allows him to leave.     The requisite footage has been recorded, I suppose, and he's not the best of company.

         "Who's 'Frankenstein?'" I ask Fez, or anyone else who cares to answer me.

         "Mad scientist," a bespectacled woman pipes up, "It's a story."

         I'm afraid I don't understand the conventions of a "mad scientist" as a character. "Beto mentioned it," I begin to explain and the woman seems concerned by this, but Apple interrupts me to direct my attention to the arrival of dessert, an elaborate cake decorated with tall candles that remind me of sparklers. It's colorful, glittering, and gorgeous. District 3 certainly knows how to put on a stylish little party.

         The recorded music they've been playing is interrupted by an old man performing with a strange electronic instrument sporting an antenna- I would never have guess it was a musical device if I weren't hearing it myself. He waves his hand over it and somehow it makes a not unpleasant sound.

         "Theremin," Fez informs me.

         "Can you dance to it?"

         He laughs. "If you want, you can."

         It would be good to get up and relax. It's something I can do that is like me. At least that's what I think. It's like the me I've been showing Panem, isn't it?

         I get up and offer Fez my hand. "Shall we then?"

         "What?" he's surprised and laughs, "Me? …that wasn't what I expected."

         "Well, wouldn't you like to?" I think he would. It couldn't hurt him.

         Fez takes a deep breath. "Sure," he rises from his seat, "Let's dance."

         Of course, I don't know the music and I'm not exactly graceful, but Fez doesn't seem to mind. Aulie gets up and tries to get Apple to dance with him too, but she acts reluctant (her face turns red and embarrassed), so he tries to support us by attempting to clap to the beat of the music. …He doesn't manage much better than I do with my dancing.

         "If we get the victor we deserve, apparently Four deserved much better than us," Fez tells me as he walks me back to my seat.

         I bite my bottom lip. I can't speak to this. I can't judge Beto. "You never know what will happen next. And the next one is bound to be different."

         "It should've been Dasha," he says.

         I understand then. It's not just Beto's personality (or however the Games warped it). It's his fiancée. She died the year Beto won. Who can say whether she could've won in Beto's place- she might have been just as doomed if he hadn't been there. I want to know, but can't ask, if he killed her.

         "Well," Apple comments as we are packed up, bringing our night to a close, "You seemed a little apprehensive earlier, but Three turned out all right."

         "Mags can get through anything," Aulie avers.

         Apple and I exchange an indulgent look. We'll let Aulie think what he wants to think. He gives me too much credit.

         "I try," I shrug. A yawn comes out.

         "Now you mustn't run yourself into the ground," Apple scolds me a bit, "I don't want you going home to your father unwell." It's funny to know that she's thinking of him. It's impossible for me to imagine Papa being romantically interested in anyone, let alone Apple, but her feelings don't bother me. Papa is a likable person. It's nice to see an adult appreciate him without feelings regarding his lack of overt active participation in the rebellion coloring things. Some people say that everyone in the Capitol hates us, but that just isn't true. Things are more complex than that. The hate goes both ways.

         …All ways really. The districts weren't as united as they thought. Within any given district there can be just as many fault lines. How united could anyone consider Kayta Hiro and Temza Bacon? Beto Ernst and Fez Merritt? That Mrs. Mirande is for and not against me is the exception and not the rule. That Kayta and Raisin and Pal and Shy would all befriend me is a deviation too. People are allowed to like me when toleration is the norm.

         I can't say I'm understanding all these things correctly, or even thinking right, particularly considering the late hour. Right or wrong, maybe what's most important is that I'm considering them.

 

         Serious thoughts are not in my foremost thoughts when I awake on the train in the morning drooling on the pillow.

         There is nothing elegant about me.

         This theme continues when I meet up with the rest of my team to find that the presentation of my visit to District 3 that will air tonight is being previewed on "Umbercover," Jack's weekly segment on "Morning Rainbow," a sort of unrealistically chipper news and entertainment program that has become the universally agreed upon thing to watch each morning after breakfast is cleared away and a miscellany of light work and hanging out goes on. I'm not sure "Morning Rainbow" is anyone's favorite program, but apparently it's the kind of thing that's hard to hate.

         Jack's "undercover" activity of the week involves "sneaking" into an editing booth and watching some footage of me in District 3. "Ooh, dancing," he says into the camera, then scoots aside a bit so everyone else can see. The half-length black cape and the dark blue skirt of the outfit from my visit there swing and sway about as I awkwardly attempt to move along with the theremin music.

         "Surely the most graceful victor of them all," Spring teases me.

         Jack tries to copy what I'm doing onscreen a bit, then stops and shakes his head. "I haven't got the D-Three jam," he says like it's something regrettable, but he's quick to brighten, "When she gets to One, though, don't worry, folks, I'll teach that girl a step or two."

         It cuts back to the hosts of the main program, who joke about Jack wanting to see me so badly that he can't even wait until tonight to watch the Tour when it airs properly. They move on to interviewing a very young-looking girl with purple-blue eyes who is starring in a movie that's just about to open.

         "Lemme do your hair," Irish sits me down and begins work on an elaborate "fishtail" braid style that starts on high on the top of my head. In the end, it will still end up twisted into two buns, one on each side of my head, though. The style team are masters of variations on a theme.

         "I've been to District Two before," Aulie pipes up.

         "What? Really?" Apple seems surprised.

         "As a matter of fact, one of my great-grandmothers was born in Two." He seems kind of proud. "That's where I get my healthy attitude."

         It stands to reason that the people of the Capitol have mixed with the districts at some point during the history of Panem, but this is the first time I've ever heard any Capitolite claim district ancestry of any sort. It's interesting. "Is there anything special you want to tell me about Two then?" I ask.

         "The mountains are lovely, but nothing special immediately jumps out at me," he shrugs, "I assumed I'd just be leaving it up to Hector and Gerik and whoever's in charge around there these days to show it off to you. …Maybe someone will put a pick in your hands and see if you can manage to mine any good silver out of the rocks." He laughs.

         "You'd be better cut out for it than me!" I protest.

         "Hold still!" I wince as Irish pokes my scalp with a hairpin. "I've got four more of these to get in there before I'm finished." The pins are silver and end in green jewels shaped like tiny fish.

         "You're all a bunch of firebrands," Tosca enters, unimpressed.

         "It's more fun this way," Apple tells her. I get to feel pleased over Apple's response. The stylists, Aulie, Apple, and I all together make a team- between us there is some definite solidarity. Tosca is just here to record things.

         "You mind yourself in Two, young lady," Tosca eyes me suspiciously.

         "Of course," I answer. I don't plan to make trouble anywhere I go, although I can't claim to be perfectly good and loyal to my handlers' every whim considering how I went off with Raisin and Kayta in Seven. But I don't want to make people upset. I don't want to get in trouble. I want to feel at home in these strange places. I want to make friends. …Did I do something in Three that she didn't like and I just don't realize it? "Is there a problem?"

         She twitches her nose. "No, I suppose not." She's still annoyed about something, but I guess she isn't going to tell me about it. Maybe it has to do with something else entirely.

         Lunchtime comes before we reach our destination in 2. I get to pick what I'd like to eat and I give one of the Avoxes a very precise description of what I would like on my tuna sandwich, hoping that being so specific doesn't cause them too much trouble and that I don't sound too stuck up either. If the sandwich came back wrong, I wouldn't complain, but it doesn't. It's just as I asked for. Mustard (a kind of fancy type, I think) drips out on my fingers. I have to be careful to avoid getting any on the book I'm borrowing from Aulie. It's an adventure story- a really old one about a boy who gets up to all sorts of shenanigans in the small town he lives in with his friends. Aulie says there was a sequel focused on the protagonist's friend, but it's harder to find copies of because it was considered more controversial at some points.

         Aulie reads too, a romance comic printed in dark pink ink. Apple isn't above teasing him over being hooked to a publication that is apparently aimed at teenage girls. She spends her free time playing a puzzle game on her handheld computing device (I still don't know exactly what it's called), then leaves us for her personal compartment to call someone. She says it's her sister, but when she's gone, Aulie tells me he thinks she has a boyfriend now, or at least a crush. He's heard her talking on the phone to a man two times on the Tour when she thought she was alone.

         I don't see why she wouldn't tell me about it if she were, but I can't quite discount the possibility that she's been talking to my father. I'm not sure I should run the 'Apple likes my father' theory past Aulie either. The two of them have a tendency to get pretty sharp with their teasing and I don't want Papa drawn into that (not that he would engage in the same pettiness, but he's hopelessly outclassed).

         "You're just jealous," Erinne counters Aulie's assertions.

         "No, we can't all be so lucky," Spring bats her eyelashes.

         Aulie gets huffy, a sign that Erinne's remark has hit home, and sinks lower into his chair, hiding his painted face behind the comic.

         "Time to get properly dressed," Spring urges me up away from my book and the final third of my glass of lemonade, so I can change out of my casual personal clothes into whatever outfit they've put together for me to sport in District 2. It turns out to be a gray and green ensemble, complete with gloves and a scarf.

         "District Two is going to be one of the colder stops," Erinne notes.

         Aside from 11, they've all seemed pretty cold to me, but I suppose the Capitol, being up in the mountains and further north, must be colder on average than 4. …And even regardless of what we're used to based on where we grew up, I could also just be a wimp about the cold. This is probably true.

         The style team is happy with me for not managing to mess up my hair to any significant degree in the time between Irish's fixing it and now. They give me one last one over and I go to look out the window and watch our approach into the center of 2.

         I missed our passing through the mountains (or maybe we did most of it through tunnels like when you go to the Capitol?), but they still seem huge from where we are. I feel like I could reach out and touch them.

         District 2 seems decently built up, but not in the same depressing towering factories style as 6 or 8 and not clinically like 3. It's orderly and exhibits a higher degree of design sense, though I'm not equipped to say quite in what way. It's just decently pleasing to look at. It is not visually oppressive to be in 2. I don't know if their unique involvement in the rebellion has anything to do with that. There don't seem to be as many visible war scars in the general vicinity, though there are some definite bomb pockmarks on some of the mountains.

         The welcoming committee that greets me at the train station is organized as neatly at the buildings I've seen. I'm met by a metallic sound, like the ringing of some strange bell. Gerik Rinsai watches my expression as I realize it was him, smacking a metal cane against his metal leg. I think he's purposely dressed so that part of his replacement calf is exposed just because he wants people to see it. He is a tall man. Hector is big too, and bulkier.

         The theme of "organization" carries on into the introductions. I am addressed, names are exchanged, we shake hands: Mayor Gabbar, Hector Auric, Gerik Rinsai, Vice-Mayor Itzel, Head Peacekeeper Cameron, Second-In-Command Peacekeeper Marriz. Hector boasts the most intimidating grip out of all of them. If he wanted, I imagine he could crush my hand.

         The only remark that must be unscheduled comes from Gerik. He has pinched, piercing eyes. "You really are that small. Huh," he says to me.

         "I looked taller on TV?" I venture.

         He shakes his head. I'm not sure if the shaking actually means "no." "You've got some presence."

         "Good things in small packages, Gerik," Hector jibes. They fall silent then, going back on script.

         We ride through the streets in a pre-decided order. There are three vehicles. There is none of the strange jostling and last minute adjusting that accompanied our visits to pretty much every other district.

         I might not be entirely off base to describe this orderliness as…military. It's funny, because I don't imagine 2 actually requires a very high degree of security, but I can see more Peacekeepers here than any other district. Maybe they're not really fully-fledged Peacekeepers. Since this is where they come from, they might still be in training.

         District 2 does not bring out the talkative side in me. Gerik and Hector are roughly equivalent in their stoicism. I am sandwiched in-between them in the car. Gerik stares out the window to the left. Hector keeps a casual eye on me, though he's careful not to stare. While most of the other victors are legally adults, Gerik and Hector are the ones who feel the most adult to me. For all the age difference between Kayta Hiro and I, I felt like we were basically the same. I suppose I can't honestly claim to know any of them well enough to judge, but Luna's mature front masks a childish petulance and whether Jack is more playing when he's acting as a thoughtful adult or a goofy kid is anyone's guess. Maybe with victory comes arrested emotional growth. …then again, it's probably just as random and related to each victor's individual personality as everything else.

         I am taken to a sculpture garden to give my speech to a select group of District 2 citizens. Half were specifically selected to be present at the event- this number includes the families of the two tributes and other related important parties ("That's my mom," Hector points a woman with long, gray braids out to me)- and the other half were chosen by lottery. Everyone else gets to watch me broadcast live ("There are big screens and stadium seating over at the parade field. Some groups of us go there to watch the Games footage usually," Hector notes. He is more of an explainer than Gerik).

         There isn't much need to make any specific personal statements to the families of Padma and Wiley. We didn't interact in the arena. I make a candid remark, expressing my relief regarding this matter, which garners some laughs. I believe the top of my head just barely cleared Wiley's shoulder. I don't want to linger overmuch on the deaths, but there's no doubt in my mind that I owe much of my survival to the stronger players picking one another off while I wandered around the edges of the arena, alone and with Sparrow.

         "Better luck next year, huh?" Gerik asks me when I've finished mentioning them.

         "Uh," I'm not sure that's what I meant, but it's not not what I meant either, "Yes."

         Hector smiles a little, the corners of his mouth twitching and crinkling (I think he's trying not to laugh- at me or Gerik, I can't tell). Mayor Gabbar pins a little gray and silver medal onto and claps me on the shoulder so hard that I stumble and Hector has to grab my arm to keep me from falling off the small, round stage. His grip there is as jolting and tough as his handshake. "Careful with that," he scolds the mayor.

         "I'm okay," I assure Hector.

         "He doesn't believe in finesse," the victor rolls his eyes.

         All (or most) of District 2 listens and chuckles at this remark, snickers mixing with applause as we finish this leg of the show and are whisked off for a whirlwind rush around the salient points they've chosen to expose me to in their district. It's a district that's full of activity. I doubt many people are sitting idle across 2 who have the capability to do differently. I see Peacekeeper trainees going for a very rapid and disciplined run. There are several building projects in evidence. Hector seems to know what all of them are going to be. "Gymnasium," he tells me, "Supply distribution center, foundry, primary school…"

         "I only mean this in the most positive way possible," I clarify, "But you seem like you're doing pretty well."

         "The Tour's pretty guided propaganda-ish, you know?" Gerik speaks up. The mayor gives him a look, which is pretty much confirmation of this as some level of truth. "But, you know, two victors and all that."

         "And they haven't rested on their laurels," Mayor Gabbar takes over for them, "They've done a great deal toward giving back to the community."

         "She gets it, Dave," Gerik says, "You saw her volunteer for that little girl the same as we did. Two hardly has a lock on community spirit."

         "…not everybody's got it so strong though," Hector adds in a very subdued, soft tone.

         The victors from 2, I think, have things on their minds that are far more complex and meaningful than I do. But we're on the same page. I'm pretty sure of this. I think they approve of what I did for Faline.

         I get to cut the ribbon on a new swimming pool at some sort of special school. The students attending the ceremony there are attentive and polite. None of them address me until Gerik speaks to them. "Who's looking forward to learning how to swim? I don't know how to swim yet myself."

         There are lots of enthusiastic yeses returned to us. A small girl reaches out and pulls on my gray tunic. "Is swimming fun?"

         "Yes, very much," I nod vigorously.

         "No sharks in swimming pools," Hector says with an impressively tough pokerface. I smile. I'm not immune to these jibes. Apple and Aulie are squeezed over on the other side of the pool between some school officials. They look bored. They haven't really gotten the chance to talk to Hector or Gerik, who might at least provide some interest as victors. The District 2 ethos doesn't appear all that compatible with the glitz and gossip that they favor. …I can't say I am quite meant for it either, though Hector obviously has a sense of humor.

         "My mom is helping to make our dinner," Hector tells me on the way out, "Some things never change."

         The most interesting feature, food-wise, of the dinner is a layered pasta dish. There are noodles, cheese, tomato sauce, spinach, and meat all arranged into one hot and interesting dish. Mrs. Auric, who tells me I can just call her "Romana," explains that it's called lasagna. She turns out to be the most talkative person I've been allowed to interact with in 2. "Mom, Mom," becomes Hector's constant, groaned refrain. Sure, he struck me as a grown man before, but no matter their age, everyone is a child before their mother.

         Romana Auric says whatever she wants without regard for Hector's wishes or any of the other people around us. Although some of the group seems annoyed by it, at least no one looks uncomfortable like they're worried for her. Maybe there's some safety in 2 as far as that kind of thing is concerned. She tells me that her husband was a Capitol loyalist and the same went for her oldest son. Her second son and her daughter were rebels. Everyone of them ended up dead. It certainly serves as a good indication of how important Hector must be to her.

         "Do you want to have children someday?" she asks me.

         "Uh-uh," I shake my head vigorously. It's a frightening proposition as a person in Panem, an extra concerning one as a victor, and an uncomfortable one as just me (or at least it is jumping the gun- I have never even kissed anyone; how can I think about children?).

         "I hope Hector will. I want to have grandchildren."

         "Your mom is so subtle," Gerik says, wiping sauce off his plate with a scrap of bread. "…I don't know about kids, but it would be great to meet someone. I get tired of being alone when I'm not with you all day."

         It's hard to tell if anything about the wanting grandchildren thing bothers Hector specifically. He responds with what seems to be his stock 'cut that out, Mom' attitude. Gerik's personal remarks are what's more interesting to him. "Tabloids are gonna have a field day, Ger," he points at Tosca, who turns away from her obvious listening to us (no surprises there, it's basically her job) to tap away furiously on her tiny computing device.

         "You know you're here for Mags, right?" Hector leans over to remind her.

         "Let the lady do her job," Romana pats her son's arm and pours me more lemonade.

         "I like tall girls with dark hair," Gerik offers Tosca a tidbit. "So," he leans on the table, making my glass shake with the shifting surface beneath it, "Are you going to send that off to Victor Affairs and all the publicity stuff and set me up on some blind dates? I've got to tell you, I would not recommend myself as a candidate for an arranged marriage."

         "Oh, goodness, no," Tosca says in a light and haughty voice. It doesn't strike me as particularly genuine, but I'm not sure I've encountered enough sincerity from Tosca Snow to recognize it when I heart it anyway.

         "Just going to bait more Capitol women then," he guesses, "Telling them what I like and all. 'Wouldn't you like to undertake the task of taming this wild savage?'"

         "And quote," Hector appends to the end of Gerik's statement. He said it, they'll use it, whoever needed context anyway? That's what I'm taking away from all of this. It paints all the coverage of the victors in an interesting light. …Although I am not exactly sure what light that is. I'm not smart enough to juggle all the strange things that now go on around me. I can't understand all the other districts, the Capitol, the thoughts of so many people. I really only have the most tiny and tenuous understanding of myself even.

         We eat another layered concoction for dessert, some sort of parfait with strawberries from a can laid on top of granola with something like ice cream, but not quite, over and under that, and whipped cream and sprinkles on top.

         "I like doing things with girl victors," Hector comments to Gerik, "Let's get a girl next time."

         It's not as if either of them has much control, if any, over it. This is just yet another exercise in black humor, but it does tell me that Hector likes me. There isn't anything special drawing me and the men from Two together, but we can get along (after Beto, I am practically glad from the mere fact of their being able to understand me when I speak). For all that many other people have been interested in and kind to me after surviving the Games, as far understanding of the topsy-turvy world victory transports you to, no one can compete with my fellow victors.

         I hope that they can tell I appreciate making their various acquaintances (Pal could, Kayta could, Shy could, it's harder to speak to even my best guesses toward the thoughts of some of the others). I make sure and tell Hector that I liked meeting his mother before I leave. As a group, the victors seem even more bereft of family than the average citizen. Hector is lucky to have her. I tell Gerik I hope he finds the right someone. They know it isn't far from here to One (although my visit will be spaced a certain amount of hours into the day as they generally seem to be, instead of One having to feed me my breakfast too), and both instruct me to "Give Jack a hard time," which I cannot quite promise myself to.

         "He's too quick for me," I say, not wanting to get their expectations too high, "He knows what to say to play the game."

         "Just do the best that you can," Gerik allows.

         "I'll be happy to do the best I can, " I agree.

         "He might let her get one or two over on him," Hector suggests, then turns to look back at me, "I guess you know he kind of likes you? But, hey, if he ever gives you a hard time, just call me up and I'll think of some way to put him in his place. He can be a first class jerk sometimes, let me be the first to warn you."

         "He always wanted a kid sister," Gerik shakes my hand as Hector hassles Aulie to take down his phone number for me.

         I can see the two of them on the platform waving at me before we gain enough speed that they disappear, just a blur in the dark.

         They're very grounded. Not, like Emmy, afloat and adrift from a world that sent her flying against her will possibly never to land again, and not, like Jack, aloft and fluttering, loosed from mundane things by some sort of choice of his own- some belief that it's best to live lightly, like the people who have adopted him as one of their own?

         But so far they've all survived, all in their own ways- Emmy and Gerik and Hector and Jack and the rest (though I've worried more for some of them than others). And then there's me. On some level, the answer to the question I'm about to ask is, clearly, whatever it takes. I didn't fight Haakon in the arena to give up now. That was my last chance to turn back. I could've let him kill me.

         …But everyone has limits. Everyone hits up against something they're not willing to do someday if life keeps on pushing them.

         The only one left to see in his own environment is Jack (though it might be possible to argue that by seeing him both onstage and backstage, I've already gone a fair distance toward seeing him in his natural habitat). I have compared and compared and compared. Now how will I live?

 

         I take a shower, able to hear the vague sounds of the television through the wall. I think my team is finally over their disappointment that they can't watch much of the official Victory Tour programming during its initial airing since we're busy at the next stop doing things to make up each new episode of the "Mags takes in the local color and says awkward things" show.

 

         I dream that Haakon Erikson and I are together in a rowboat. There is no land in sight. There are no oars. The boat springs a leak and water that looks like blood (maybe it is blood?) begins to flood in. We don't try to stop it. He asks about my dad. I ask about his sister.

         I wake up before this dream has crept to any meaningful conclusion, leaving behind the image of the two of us facing one another, the blood-water nearly up to our knees.

         I take another shower. It's five in the morning. My team is still sleeping. I put on a green shirt and a pair of pants out of my own clothing. I go and sit on the couch in the sitting room- err, car. One of the Avoxes, one of the men, peeks in at me. He makes a gesture that I interpret as "Do you need anything?" I shake my head. "I'm fine, thanks."

         He points out the window. My curiosity is piqued. I come over to look and see that the sun is slowly creeping over what is presumably District 1, considering how gentle and slow our progress continues forward. In the midst of miles of rolling hills and shrubby fields dotted with rock formations is a tall city. "White city," I whisper.

         The Avox points at himself.

         "Is that where you're from?"

         He nods.

         "It's beautiful," I tell him.

         He nods again.

         We watch a while then go our separate ways.


	5. Part I, Chapter V

         As opposed to all of the certain everyday-clothes- just to Capitol tastes- style of the outfits I've worn throughout the Victory Tour so far, the dress that's been picked out (made? adjusted?) for me to wear to District 1 is definitely a party dress. It's white and gold and yellow, which suits my vague notions of District 1 just fine. It also matches the white city we've come to rest in as it appeared while I watched it the warm dawn roll over its sleek surfaces. Is this setting the tone, I wonder, for the few steps of the Victory Tour yet to come?

         There are dangling ornaments for my hair too- made of ribbon and bells and old coins shined up to a brilliant gold sheen. They dangle down around my shoulders and remind me of the nets and pearls I wore in my hair for the initial on air celebration of my victory.

         Even the shoes, though fortunately they're flats, are part gold and just as flamboyant as the rest of the outfit. Irish dabs a bit more eye makeup on me than usual and it also glitters. "District One expects someone pretty, I guess," I joke about it.

         "Eh," Spring shrugs, "They know what to expect."

         Someone plain it is then!

         I don't mention it to Apple because I don't want to irritate her, but while we wait for our cue (not our arrival, since our train has actually been not only within the boundaries of District 1, but sitting in the white city, whatever its name might be, for a while now), I consult with my more understanding Capitol mentor-minder-friend. "So now I get to see Jack?" I stand on tiptoe to whisper to Aulie (even when I am on tiptoe, he must lean back down toward me to keep our speaking private).

         "Presumably! I can't think of any reason at all why they would want to deprive us of a little time with one of our favorite victors." He winks and I notice that his eyelids are just as gold as mine. "Yours, mine, and the Capitol's," he clarifies his "ours."

         "You and Apple were really bored in Two, weren't you?"

         "Oh, no," he begins and I think he's about to lie, "We weren't just bored on some normal level, we were bored practically to tears!" …I should've known he just wanted to tease or make a big deal out of it. "The food was very nice, but I found the fashion and entertainment somewhat lacking. …And we barely got to speak to the victors. A bunch of stiffs and Peacekeepers aren't really the kind of company Apple and I much appreciate." He shrugs. "It probably goes both ways, to tell the truth."

         "You'll be able to make up for it by having an extra good time here though, don't you think?" I flip one of the bell-weighted ribbons back over my shoulder then point at his suit of the day with its many magenta sequins. "We look like we're dressed to have fun here."

         "Fun is definitely my aim," Aulie grins and gives me the full, um, experience, of his perfectly cleaned Capitol teeth and their various sparkling adornments. "And I do suppose that the fun quotient is on a definite upswing now- One, the Capitol, and then back to Four where the party will inevitably be huge."

         "Are you sure it's possible for us to put on a bigger party in Four than they will in the Capitol? An ordinary day in the Capitol can put some of the small celebrations we have back home to shame, size- and glitz-wise."

         "Well, you know, the party is going to be in Four, but the Capitol is throwing it for you, Mags, so I imagine the budget is skyscraper high."

         "Hmm." I want to say that it "makes sense," but what is there to make sense of in this situation? It is what it is. I guess that it all fits together nicely now that I've been better informed about the way it works.

         "Now, now," Apple and Tosca walk through the hall, jarring me back to the better posture somewhat Capitol occasionally tells me to show as Apple claps her hands. "It's time for us to get going!"

         "Mags fiiiirst," Apple gives a little cheer and pushes me into forward motion with a tiny touch of her manicured hands. Today, her hands are kind of cold.

         The door opens for me automatically and I am received by a delegation whose cheers and clapping were presaged by Apple's own. I smile and look around. There are men and women; there are cameras.

         There is no sign of Jack Umber- not that he would be the first fellow victor to fail to meet me the moment my feet alit on his home district's soil. …though the ones who didn't were either ambivalent or unfriendly to me and I think I can be reasonably sure that Jack is interested in me without seeming naive or self-absorbed.

         A blond woman with a long ponytail swishing behind her breaks from the anonymity of the group to meet me. "Ms. Gaudet, I'm Sophie Varen, incredibly pleased to meet you!"

         The way she shakes my hand, she certainly seems like it. There are pearls hanging in her hair and they bob about with her excitement. "Please," she continues, "Consider me your tour guide and facilitator throughout your visit to District One. I hope you will find it most enjoyable."

         "Uh, yeah," I stammer, "Thank you." She's a little like Apple or Aulie with her overwhelming enthusiasm, but I am also tempted to say that she bears some resemblance to Jack. She is putting on a show, after all. Off to the side, by one of the cameramen, I can see Tosca looking pleased. "It's nice to meet you too, Ms. Varen."

         "Just 'Sophie' is fine."

         "And likewise, just 'Mags.'"

         She's so pretty. I realize that she hasn't let go of my hand all this time. Her hand is warm. Her eyes are green. She does remind me of Jack. It's something about District 1. A little something visual- genetic- and a little something related to presentation. She steps around me and turns me this and that, introducing me to everyone assembled who they've determined is worth my specifically knowing, but I know that I won't be able to keep track of them all, so I focus my remembering efforts on the mayor, Cyn Greenstreet, who I figure is the most important among them.

         Sophie is warm and friendly with the rest of my entourage as well, giving the assembled people a small introduction to each of them, "Because their unique identities may not always be entirely apparent from the way they've been presented on TV," she beams.

         It occurs to me that Shy would probably love her.

         "Apple Smitt, official District Four escort, with a taste for the color green that goes past fashionable and into the iconic-"

         Apple is obviously (and unsurprisingly) flattered. She waves the little forest green and gold fan she (or someone else) has picked to go with her current outfit.

         "-The impressively muscled Aulus Strong, several time coach to District Four in absence of a victor-"

         Aulie is a bit better behaved in regard to the attention.

         "-Erinne Cousla, up and coming fashion designer and current head designer for Mags and District Four's tributes, and, rounding out the official District Four style team are Spring Sam and Irish Wilkes, assistants to Ms. Cousla."

         The style team accepts the accolades gracefully, as expected. They generally manage to be calm purveyors of (relatively, by my standards) good taste.

         When everyone has been suitably introduced, clapped for, smiled at, and otherwise fawned over, I learn that next part of the plan is a tour of District 1's highest end artisan district, where any number of pretty things are made to suit the tastes of the Capital. I catch Erinne vaguely noting, "I always wanted to see this," to Spring.

         "If you have any questions at all, please feel free to direct them to me," Sophie tells me.

         The questions I have are small and flippant and not really intended for public consumption, so I nod my understanding and withhold them, at least for now. I am getting better and better at forgetting how many cameras can be around me, but to a certain degree, I know it's better not to forget. I don't know the punishment for a victor who says something untoward- though since the Victory Tour isn't airing live, the Capitol reserves the safety of editing. Whether many or few people hear it, even with the consequences an unknown, I feel that vaguely defined pressure to "be good."

         Sophie and I ride in the back seat of a fancy white car with the top down, which makes for a decent veil of noise. "Do you mind my asking," I intrude on her silence, "Where Jack is?"

         "No," she says, "I thought you would want to know that."

         "I guess I thought he'd be at the station when I arrived…" I admit.

         "The district has a rough relationship with Jack, you know?" Sophie offers in place of a straightforward explanation, "One hated him as much as anyone else when he won. He killed five people, including Rosie Callahan, his female counterpart, our last "Junior Miss District One." Jack was an orphan; Rosie had a big family. And then the Capitol went and said, after they'd done all this to punish us as a whole, that for killing his fellow district citizens, Jack deserved to be rewarded, not, well, the best I can imagine would've been being allowed to quietly fade from the spotlight. So he became an honorary one of them.

         "…Now, you also know that our district has long been pushed into focusing our industries on pleasing the nearby Capitol. In a way, Jack is doing that very same thing, but people hate to be reminded of such unpleasant truths about themselves. They want to say that Jack chooses it and they don't, when, really, we all have roughly the same choice- submit or die…"

         Sophie trails off and unenthusiastically points out beyond the developed bounds of the city that come into view as we go up a hill. "Vineyards. We grow grapes to make wine. We grow garlic too. Oranges. Some strawberries. No staples. It's whatever we can grow that the Capitol likes, to make up for or supplement the things out of the more workmanly farming districts. …That's what we did before and what we're doing again. Whatever the Capitol likes."

         "You never hated Jack though, did you, Sophie," I guess. She seems wistful. For all her talk of the past, including the pre-Games past of the earlier half of my childhood, it's hard to believe Sophie could be old enough to remember it much better than I do. How old is she? She can't possibly be as old as Jack, can she?

         "No, you're right. I didn't." Her voice grows so soft I almost strain to hear it. "I like him."

         It's romantic (even if she doesn't mean her feelings romantically). It's kind of beautiful.

         "You're turning pink!" Sophie laughs, surprised.

         I am? I am! "I can't help it!" I protest.

         "Don't worry," she keeps on sputtering with mirth, "Jack will make an appearance eventually. He just had something else on his schedule for the morning- it's all been worked out in advance."

         We're slowing down a bit. "Almost there," she says. "…You know, Jack has talked to me about you. He follows all of your television appearances and publicity."

         "Do you work with Jack?"

         "Yeah, all the time."

         "Ladies," the driver prompts us once we've come to careful stop. Sophie thanks her and holds the door for me. The wind has mussed her hair somewhat, but mine has largely held. My style people know how to do their job well.

         "Jack's such a popular topic of conversation," Tosca says as she approaches us.

         "Can you lip read?" I inquire. I think I'd come off paranoid asking if she could hear (via a bug or other less sneaky recording device), so it's better not to voice that thought.

         "Enough," she answers, "And it seemed worth a guess."

         Aulie's favorite cameraman gets us- Sophie and me- in frame. Tosca backs away rather than holding up the proceedings. Sophie gives me a well-rehearsed spiel about this three-block area being the jewel of District 1's arts district and we set out on our walk to investigate a representative sample of the craftspeople and shops.

         There's a seamstress who painstakingly copies the current Capitol trends for those with lower incomes (by Capitol standards) who strive for upward movement in the fashion world. Her work on display includes a replica of my blue and gold crowning dress resting on a mannequin. The seamstress acts pleased to meet Erinne, the designer, though to a large degree, I think it's an act. The seamstress is thin and the circles under eyes are impressively dark and heavy even through her makeup.

         There's a jewelry shop focused on diamonds, a place full of golden watches, designer aquarium fish, jewelry made like (of?) stained glass, strangely fluffy scarves knitted out of some material that's so soft I'm mesmerized and can't stop touching them (I have probably provided my moment to be laughed at for the Tour show right there), seashell-shaped chocolates, ice sculptures…things I've never seen and can't name. Some of the things are designed by people in the Capitol and made here, but there's also a small segment of 1's population that gets to exercise some degree of their own creativity.

         I don't know if the area has been specifically cleared out for my visit, but I'm struck by how quiet it is. Maybe it is normally like this. Maybe there are rarely any shoppers unless visitors or wholesalers come out from the Capitol and it's calm with just the various locals working away above and below and behind the storefronts. They only film samples of individual tasks that involve precision and artfulness, but I can hear in places the sounds of mass production, and catch a glimpse or two of the more undifferentiated workers toiling away in other parts of the shops.

         Aulie and Apple purchase a few things at what they tell me are very large discounts from what the items would cost them in the Capitol. I feel like I can practically see the stars shining in their eyes. If they had to live in one of the districts, this is the place they would pick. Even if, in those circumstances, they couldn't afford any of these things, I think they would be happiest if they remained around them at least, able to look.

         Rather than "spoiling my appetite" for whatever lavish dinner District 1 has prepared for me, Sophie takes us to a sweets shop so fluffily decorated in white and pinks that I'd almost believe that the building was made out of frosting. "It's going to be really rich," Sophie cautions me, "So you should only pick one thing."

         I take the decision rather seriously and lean down, peering into the display counter at all the fancy confections, somewhat awed by the variety that I see. One thing. How do I pick one thing when I've never eaten any of these things? I mean, I'm sure they're all good, but-

         Apple and Erinne and everyone else pick sweets out around me.

         The younger-looking of the two women behind the counter approaches me. "Lacy," reads the frosting-like lettering on her nametag. "You're just like on TV!" she giggles, "Do you, um, need some help? Like a recommendation?"

         I laugh nervously, proving how much I probably do need it. "Pick me something?"

         Lacy's smile seems to stretch from ear to ear. "You got it."

         A stranger is happy to do some small thing for me. This is part of what it is, I suppose, to be a celebrity. Lacy chooses something soft and almond-studded and filled with pink whipped cream. I take it outside to eat at one of the small umbrella-shaded tables and it tastes lovely. I can see why Sophie told me only to get one.

         "Somebody's happy," Sophie says to me, between dainty bites of her chocolate eclair (do all these people have special training to be able to eat so neatly? I spend a lot of time feeling awfully sloppy in their presence). "Jack gets the same way when he eats."

         "Will we have dinner with him?"

         "No, I don't think so. It wasn't in the plans. But, you never know, he could finish up early and come join us. I'm sure he will if he has the time."

         I didn't get the impression that it was very difficult for most of the other victors to find the time in their schedules to interact with me (and some of them genuinely wanted to do so). Jack is a busier person than I realized.

 

         We go for another driving ramble and this time a cameraman squeezes into the car with us to record Sophie's pressed, polished, and shined comments on various local landmarks and industry while I respond with polite interest to each of the things we see.

         Between takes, the cameraman (I have never really learned their names- we were never separately introduced) pokes fun at my canned replies to Sophie's facts. Sophie is thoroughly amused. "But I'm the one who's really giving canned lines!" she protests.

         "Your acting is better than my just being!" I act mock-affronted at this charge.

         But my good mood fades as I realize where our ride is about to end. Time to speak of the dead once again. To take one last bit of responsibility for the more unfortunate things I've done. It's time to get the hardest part of this over with (for that last time, I assure myself, because there may be that empty ache in 4 where Beanpole was, but it's not some new thing to be confronted- I've been dealing with it all this time).

         Clark and Korona's family members stand out by the way they've been pinned with a black, folded ribbon each on their chests. A sign of mourning, maybe. "We respectfully welcome Victor Mags," Mayor Greenstreet goes on, "And salute her for her performance." I seem to be packaged slightly differently for each district. It's all in the wording. No one has asked me to behave differently for the benefit of any particular group. I am my usual shaky self, stumbling through my thank your and remembrances and veiled "I'm sorry"s. 1 accepts all of this with gloomy reserve. One of Korona's sisters starts to scream something at me. I am startled, but the rest of her family quickly quiet her.

         There's nothing surprising about anger in this situation. They've had several months to cool off, but the pain of losing a family member doesn't fade fast. I've had plenty of time to observe the reactions of Mrs. Mirande, for instance, and she's hurting even though she doesn't blame me for Beanpole's fate. Here, bad feelings are being stirred up again on purpose. Smile for the killer. Welcome her to your home.

         Dinner follows, but I'm not very hungry. Sophie tries very hard to be entertaining. I learn that she is twenty-two and works as a tour guide for Capitol visitors. She appears on television occasionally in a related capacity, which is how she knows Jack. Apple cues up a short video of Sophie and Jack visiting a vineyard on her comp device via Capitol Net. They look very comfortable together.

         There is wine on the table from that very same vineyard. Aulie gets tipsy.

         Jack doesn't show.

         But that only means that we'll go on from here to meet up with him elsewhere, according to Sophie. Something about having a secondary stop that will- undoubtedly, I feel it- be big and flashy makes me nervous.

         I go quietly to this next destination, somewhere large and enclosed. A theater? A television studio? I know there are satellite branches of the Capitol's various film and television companies located here. Sophie leads me through a black back door and down a nondescript hall. "We'll be watching from the sidelines," Apple assures me as the hall branches in several directions and the vague blurs of noise and light at the edges grow stronger.

         "Wh-what am I being expected to do?" I freeze up and interrogate Sophie.

         "Nothing terribly complex," she assures me, "Just play along with Jack- he's got the whole thing under control. He's going to show you off a little bit."

         I start to stammer out something related to my suddenly spiking nerves, but I'm not given much of a chance to say it. A man with a headset waves me on and when I hesitate, I'm urged up onto the shiny, mother of pearl-ish stage to stand beside Jack, who looks all flash in a golden yellow three piece suit, behind a gold ornamented microphone on a stand. "Oh, here we are! We have our newest victor with us today- Mags Gaudet!" he works the crowd into giving me a hearty round of applause. "…Hey, look, we kind of match," he stretches out an arm to compare the color of his suit to my dress and I'm able to see that even the lighter white-gold lining of the suit jacket is similar to my costume. Who coordinated this? My style team? Someone in Victor Affairs? I don't know who it is who directly manages and dresses Jack.

         "Those colors," I say and the words come out quiet, then I am suddenly picked up better by the microphone as Jack leans it toward me, making the second half of the sentence boom, "Look nice on you."

         This provokes a round of chuckles from the audience and someone shouts out, "They'd look nice off of you too!" which- is it wrong to hope that's directed at Jack?

         "Tonight's looking booked for me, but maybe some other night you'll get to find out," he takes the jibe and runs with it, tossing the crowd a flirtatious crumb that provokes lots of laughing here, but will probably be greeted with just as screams and swoons in the Capitol. I think of what Sophie Varen told me about Jack and District 1. This audience was probably specially chosen for this event. Maybe there was a bit more flexibility because I doubt many people in 1 have anything specifically against me (there's my involvement with Korona and there could also be some plain dislike of victors), but still, for all that the Victory Tour is meant to be about me, this is looking like another installment of the Jack Umber show.

         "Now, back to the task at hand," he tries to take hold of things, but he's no Jeff Zimmer and the audience doesn't settle immediately at his command. "Now," he repeats himself, "About Mags." He sticks his hand under his jacket and from his back pocket pulls a gold-colored box with a little blue ribbon around it. "I bought her a present."

         I jolt a bit. He holds it up for everyone (the cameras) to see. "Is that okay?" he asks for the approval of the audience.

         I dig my hands into the folds of my dress. I can feel my face turning red and I can't think of anything to do to fight it. I can only hope that if I take a deep breath and throw myself into the act that it will pass before too many people pick up on it and it gets replayed a hundred times on talk programs all over the Capitol.

         The cheers and whistles that Jack receives can only be taken as a general approval of his actions. I manage to convince myself to let go of my dress (if it were just a shirt, I am sure I would be worrying the hem of it between my fingers- I've been noticing that I do that, but is it enough to be considered a bad habit?).

         Jack turns a bit, the box in one hand and the microphone stand in the other. He looks down at me. There's so much gold and glitter in today's themed clothes and decorations that his deep green eyes almost seem to have flecks of gold in them too. "Is it okay?" he repeats his question to me, in a softer, less emcee-like tone.

         As much as I want to be in control of my feelings and my performance, I haven't managed to get fully into the swing of this quite yet. I nod.

         "So, what do you think, District One?" he looks back out at the people in search of their okay.

         In the Capitol, across Panem, and back at home, this is what Jack does, isn't it? He bends and contorts himself, smiling and joking and inquiring, to become or give whatever people want. There were no interviews before his Games. There were no public signs that there was anything chameleon-like about him.

         I wonder what Jack would do or say if the people were to tell him this wasn't what they wanted. That they wanted to hate me. That they didn't want to watch any friendly overtures toward me. …but someone in the Capitol must feel the same, or similarly, to Jack. He is dancing to their tune or they are accompanying the cheery jig he begins a cappella.

         "Can we be friends?" Jack asks the people, though presumably he is also asking me, "District One and District Four- what do you think?" he proposes, "Friendly rivals?"

         The reception this suggestion garners is nothing to scoff at. I see some "Go District 1" banners waving toward the back of the room, the same kind of Games boosting stuff that Jack flaunts on television when he's stuck between Mr. Bronze and Mr. Zimmer during all the pre-Games coverage. There is- or at least I'm meant to see- some kind unity in District 1, but it doesn't feel the same to me as the cool solidarity that District 2 seemed to present. I guess that doesn't mean it's not real, but I think I could be forgiven for a bit of skepticism. 2 might've come off a bit dull, but what I saw felt real. Nearly every bit of 1 that I've been exposed to has been perfect and polished to such a degree that it's not hard to question how real it is.

         If the Victory Tour is as much propaganda as Gerik said it was, every other district is propaganda I can believe. But not 1. So what does that mean, regarding 1?

         Jack lets go of his grip on the microphone stand to untie the ribbon on the box and theatrically open up his gift for me. Inside the box are two, um, I think there's a special name for them, but I forget. Hairsticks? They're hairsticks. They look like they're made of gold (or gold paint) over wood. They're thin at the bottoms and thick up to small balled tops. They're glittery. I have ceased to be all that moved by glitteriness, the way that it has been overdone as the theme of this Tour stop (or of District 1's public image in general).

         "May I?" Jack removes them from the box, which he tucks back into one of his pockets (I can see it jutting out of the top against his jacket now that I know it's there).

         "Uh," I stammer stupidly as he reaches toward my hair. No "yes," but no "no" either.

         He moves very carefully, touching my head as little as possible as he slips one stick through the bun on the left side of my head and then the other through the bun on the right. Some of the dangling decorations are jarred a bit and jingle slightly. "There," he declares when he's finished. He steps back from me and reaches back for the microphone. There are better, smaller ways of amplifying sound, but I suppose he likes the dramatic display that this microphone makes. It stands at about eye level for me, probably making me seem particularly short.

         Jack looks me over and the cameras are probably doing the same.

         "How do I look?" I ask him.

         The microphone picks up his sharp little intake of breath. "Wonderful," he settles upon. It sounds good, but it's not too weighted. Better than "great," but not "lovely" or "beautiful."

         Do I look wonderful? It doesn't matter. It makes me smile.

         "You got something to say?" he offers, moving the microphone between us and giving me the floor as he stands primly by my side.

         I laugh, and my voice echoes around the room. "Ha ha, thank you, Jack."

         I catch a small snapping sound, but it might be someone in the audience dropping something or just a bit of audio feedback. "Isn't he nice?" I prompt the people.

         "Yes!" calls Sophie, which is funny, since her voice comes not from the people sitting in front, but from backstage. People are beginning to laugh, but the timing seems a bit off for it to have been prompted by my comments.

         Then there's a pop. It sounds very close to my head.

         I only slightly turn my head to look at Jack, who wears an incredibly tight-lipped smile that can only be a dam against a torrent of laughter.

         There is a lit match in his hand.

         I turn to face him full on. A few colored sparks flutter down in past my cheeks. The popping noise continues sporadically. My mouth falls open, nervous and incredulous, but I can't think of anything reasonable to say as Jack reaches up and touches the match to, presumably, my other hairstick, before blowing it out.

         Bright, gem-hued sparks of light pop off and drift around me. I try to look up at them, but it's hard to see something that's situated toward the top of your own head. "Umm?" I query him, worried.

         "Aww," he puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to rest against his side- apparently he's not bothered by or worried over the sparks that are still jumping off my hair sticks, even though they must start quite close to his face based on our comparative heights, "I wouldn't put you in danger," he insists.

         The way the laughing around us continues, this is not exactly the best way to sell me on believing him, but I try and believe him, leaning stiffly into his "good buddies" type of one-armed embrace.

         The popping sound dies down, although streaks of color still float down around me. I catch sight of Aulie standing on the far edge of the stage wiping tears of laughter off his face. His makeup is smearing from the tears and his hands.

         Jack babbles on for the entertainment of the crowd, thanking the makers of the trick sparkler hairsticks for the use of their product, telling everyone when they'll be able to see the rest of the airing of the Victory Tour (and when it will re-air, which I'm sure my team takes note of), and commenting on some of his favorite parts of it so far, which were mainly times I was shown doing something awkward or tacky. "Now," he says at last, drawing his presentation to a close, "I have one last proposition to make before I retire for the night and leave you lovely people to carry on your celebrations without me."

         He slides his arm around until it's just his right hand resting on my left shoulder as he looks down at me, "Mags." He sounds very serious, but I can't help but assume now that Jack being serious is nothing but the setup for yet another joke. "Will you come out sometime and host my show with me?"

         …and how is it that he makes his eyes sparkle like that?

         What a funny, funny man.

         "More than once or twice," he hopes, "Maybe a lot? Maybe all the time?"

         Now, I could play this distant and uninterested and, who knows, maybe that's what Jack wants from me, but we didn't talk about this at all beforehand and there's no way for me to tell, so I've just got to proceed as I see fit. So, I tell him, "I don't know about _all_ the time, but…yes. I'll be on your show. More than once or twice. I would love to."

         We are enveloped in applause. Maybe I didn't play it perfect, but it was all right.

         We head back stage and Jack puts his arm around my shoulders. "Oh, that was great! You were great!" he squeezes my shoulders.

         "You were too, Jack," Sophie approaches us. She looks so happy.

         I tilt my head up to try and gauge Jack's reaction to her. Am I disappointed that it isn't incandescent? He is certainly happy, but it's of the same caliber as he's shown to me. "Thank you, Sophie."

         It's funny. What's all this about a romantic dream…?

         "You look tired, Mags," he peers down at me. There's so much kindness in this simple squint. "The parties the Capitol likes to throw can really take it out of you, so I should probably see you safely delivered back into the hands of your people so that you can rest up for tomorrow night."

         "I can stay up," I answer, "The party won't be until late- I'll have lots of time to rest." Jack's face hasn't registered any change in his stance. "…I want to talk to you," I offer my candid feelings.

         He considers it.

         "Mags!" Apple calls to me, scampering over to my side, "You really are all right, aren't you? You looked so scared when you realized there were sparks flying around your hair."

         "I'm okay, Apple."

         "I'll be at the party in the Capitol," Jack tells me, "Don't worry, you're going to see me again. You'll probably see me so much you'll get sick of me." He laughs. It's strange to watch him fluctuate so quickly between self-promoting and self-deprecating.

         It's just…in the Capitol is there ever a chance to talk without scrutiny? For people like Jack and me, is it possible to exist in public without an audience? "I- I," I stutter. Well, what is there after all for me to say?

         He takes his arm off my shoulders and touches my face. I pull back, bumping against Apple, who puts her arm around me instead, sort of protectively. "Tomorrow then," Jack reiterates, "In the Capitol. I'll be looking forward to it."

         "Let's round up Aulus and everyone and get you back to your room on the train," Sophie suggests. I get the feeling that Sophie's entire public life revolves around making things easier for other people. While it's admirable, it must be exhausting. I hope that after a day like today she gets some time off for some good rest of her own.

         "Good night," Jack tells Sophie, I think, in particular.

         "Don't get mobbed when you leave," Sophie warns him.

         "Oh, what do I care?" Jack shrugs.

         "…Would people hurt him?" I frown as we separate. Jack moves away from us and eventually I can only see the top of the back of his head as he's enveloped by members of the broadcast crew.

         "Probably not." Sophie can't reassure me.

        

         It's dark outside as we make our way back to the cars. District 1's white city twinkles around us. It's not the Capitol, but 3 is its only competitor among the districts for concentration of lights. "Do you think we can keep in touch?"

         "I'd be happy to try," Sophie says, "But even if we can't, know that I'll be watching all your events.

         "I'll watch for you on TV too," I promise. "…I might even learn something."

         "A lot of it's fluff," Sophie smiles and leans her chin on her hand.

         The combination of darkness and silence that enfolds us afterward is not unpleasant.

         "…I'll take care of Jack the best I can," she tells me.

         "I'm sure that'll mean the best that anyone can." I mean this quite sincerely. There's only so much anyone can do, but Sophie has the proximity, if not the means, to manage something.

         She doesn't have a phone at home, but she gives me the extension of the branch of the studio she works in, admitting she doesn't have much time to chat there, but if it's urgent, she can make up an excuse. I offer my phone number in return (the remembering of it still trips me up a bit).

        

         And that's how my journey through the remaining foreign-to-me eleven districts wraps up. I am as exhausted as Jack thought, though I can only tell it now that the moment has passed.

         There will be time to wash up in the morning. I go to sleep in my party dress.

         If I dream, I don't remember it.

 

 

         I sleep in. I shower. I don't bother braiding my hair or putting it up in buns, but settle for simply tying it back in a ponytail. I wear the dress that Pal made for me. I keep running my fingers along the seams between the different patches of fabric. It's a very comfortable dress. It was so kind of him to make it for me.

         By the time I've gotten myself all together, it seems to late for breakfast, so I hold out for lunch. Aulie goes into the city and brings lunch back for everyone, even the four Avoxes, whose reactions to being invited to eat with us look to be a mix of caution and excitement. They sit off to the side even while sharing the dining car with us, but whenever I make eye contact, they smile at me. They do some kind of impressively intricate talking with their hands among themselves. I wonder what kind of things they say about us. I wonder what their schedules are like. Who's in charge of them? What do they do for fun? What is the blond Avox woman from the Games complex doing now?

         Aulie and Apple both offer to take me into the Capitol to do something during the afternoon, but I figure that it's better to stay low-key until tonight. Aulie's been out already- along with picking up lunch, apparently he checked on his place, looked through his mail, and chatted with his neighbors who were excited about seeing him on TV. Apple takes her turn to out and do some things of her own. "I'll bring you back some fun," she tells me.

         "Oh, you don't have to do that, Apple," I laugh.

         "It will be my pleasure," she disagrees.

         "…If she brings you something I've seen before in her apartment, I may never stop laughing," Aulie says once she's gone.

         "So you know her well enough to have been in her apartment. I wasn't sure."

         "Well, it was just during your Games. We watched some of there together. We couldn't help but worry about you."

         "Sometimes I think that you're like my aunt and uncle," I admit.

         "You are what we have in common…"

 

         When Apple returns, she hands me a pink plastic bag. "Mink's" it says, in curly, magenta lettering. "It's just a few little things."

         This turns out to mean two magazines ("Fashion Forward" and "Out and About" which has my photograph on the cover), two candy bars, and some sort of wooden brain teaser puzzle that causes Aulie to mouth something which probably means "out of her apartment" to me but I'm still no good at lip-reading. I do my best to express my gratitude to her for thinking of me, then retreat to my room.

         I sit on the bed and look at the magazines. As much as it pains me on some level, I look at the article related to me first. It's about the Victory Tour, featuring pictures through our stop in District 5. That's something to be said for the Capitol- they do things fast. There's a row of little cut out pictures of me in each of my different Tour outfits that makes me think of the paperdolls Aoko and I used to make, cutting clothes out of magazines. The writing is pretty vapid, but I actually enjoy the pictures. I want to keep them- posing with Pal, attempting the Woodcutters' Dance, visiting the hospital with Sunny, being thrown over Aulie's shoulder… Whatever the Capitol finds good about continuing to have a Victory Tour, there's been good in it for me too.

         Jack Umber is visiting a famous Capitol bar and photographed with colorful, practical glowing bottles and drinks in "Out and About"'s other main spread. I wonder if tonight we really will talk, or if it will just be another opportunity for him to tease me.

 

         I can't figure out the puzzle before Erinne knocks on my door to collect me for tonight's round of dressing up- inevitably the fanciest, most elaborate one of all.

         The outfit is waiting for me on a dress form. "I am sooo sick of sewing those stars," Spring laughs as I gape at the detailed costume before me.

         It bears some similarity to my victory dress, which I presume is intentional. It's just like the matter of how my preferred hairstyle is usually preserved for my various appearances. Recognizability is important. …Or it will be as the ranks of victors swell. I can't imagine at this point that it's hard to tell me apart from Emmy, Luna, Sunny, and Shy. The only one I can strain to think I resemble is Emmy- I suppose if she always veers pink and I always slant blue there's unlikely to be much confusion.

         "I love the way you gawk," Irish chuckles, shaking her head at me.

         The dress is…well, I take the base to be blue. Another gradient of sorts, with a light blue at the top, running down to a dark blue at the bottom. But over that blue are large shapes in other colors. Toward the top is a golden yellow sun shooting forth sharp, rectangular beams that wrap around the dress's chest and waist and over the short sleeves. Curving up from near the bottom of the roughly knee-length dress is a yellow-white crescent moon. Stretched in between and behind them are curlicued clouds in varied shades of gray and white.

         The part that Spring must be referring to tiring her out is hanging loosely over the dress. It's a huge, diaphanous piece of blue-tinted fabric run through with silver thread and sewn with white stars edged with silver and gold. There's a certain net-like quality to it. There's a twisted braid of through-lines here and I'm not even sure the woman who designed this is aware of all of them. Shades of the Games and of 4's fishing industry were probably captured intentionally, but that wearing a net makes me something like a bride has probably escaped her. (It's not really a net after all and it wasn't woven back home. They don't expect me to share it with anyone.)

         There are black tights. Red flats. But I keep staring at the decorated piece of fabric, wondering how they want me to wear it. "You caught the stars in a net," I say to Erinne.

         "Well, a veil," she shrugs, though she looks pleased with my response.

         I get dressed up and after my hair is fixed up and a bit more makeup than usual is daubed on my face (red-pink lip gloss, mascara, some very shiny blue eye shadow) the star-spattered veil is draped over my head in an artfully casual way. Erinne secures it with two inconspicuous silver pins.

         Apple applauds for me when I come out ready to go. She and Aulie have also dressed up (though they always seem to be dressing up to me).

         "We'll catch up with you at the party," Spring winks at me.

         "They're nothing like yours, but we picked out special outfits too," Irish elaborates.

         Tosca is nowhere in evidence as we depart, but we still have one of the cameraman officially training his lens on us (to say nothing of the various folks who stop to film or snap pictures when they notice our small ensemble passing by). Apple tells me that Tosca is picking up her brother to bring to the party. Her much younger brother, apparently, since it sounds like I'm older than him.

         We arrive at the location where the party will be held. It's a huge mansion. I have no idea who it belongs to and don't bother to ask. There's a handsome man in a rather ridiculous fur hat waiting to meet us. He hands me a bouquet of sunflowers. "Nar Lycius," he introduces himself, "From Victor Affairs. I've been appointed official District Four liaison on top of my preexisting post as official liaison to District Five, so I'm sure we'll be seeing each other on and off on a regular basis."

         "So Shy has to share you with me now?" I smile.

         "She's easy to manage. I think you'll be the same. This setup is a compliment, really. Some of the other districts need separate liaisons already just because they have complicated or troublesome circumstances."

         "Kayta Hiro," I suggest to Apple and Aulie. Apple indulges me with a smile. Aulie chuckles.

        

         First up on our agenda here is an impromptu photo shoot on the steps. Luckily it's not meant to be anything particularly fancy or "artistic" because we gradually garner a large audience as more and more guests arrive for the party. I pose with the sunflowers. I pose by myself. I pose with Aulie and Apple.

         At some point I realize that the whole photo affair is being broadcast live on a large screen facing the sort of square that the manor abuts. My surprise and embarrassment is writ large on my face. I can see as well as hear people as they laugh.

         Following the photography session, we head inside. Jeff Zimmer is waiting to engage me in a brief interview as soon as the majority of the guests have arrived. We sit together at a table on a raised platform and make small talk until then, listening to the mumble of chatting partygoers, soft, recorded music, and the not as subtle as the people probably think clicking of cameras.

         I see Erinne and Spring kissing beside a large vase of tropical flowers. They look pretty. So happy too. I can't pick Irish out of the crowd, but, presumably, she's here now as well. Nar is making a complicated series of hand gestures to an Avox, giving me the impression he "speaks" their special language. Some of the people do a lot of looking at me. Others just carry on with their socializing like Mr. Zimmer and I aren't even here. I guess it doesn't make much difference to me either way. I just notice.

         When the president arrives, business, as it is, begins in earnest. The crowd quiets down and Mr. Zimmer turns on his microphone. He asks me if I've been having as much fun on the Tour as I appear to be having and, of course, I respond in the affirmative. As troubling as some aspects of it have been, it _has_ been fun. He quizzes me about some of the things I ate and saw and did, all easy questions intended to amuse the audience as a result of either my enthusiasm or the perceived provincial quality of the districts or some combination thereof.

         No one is surprised that I can't decide on either a favorite food or a favorite district outside of my own. Apple speaks up from behind me to suggest that that I might discover that my favorites are things I have yet to experience here, which is also an inevitable crowd pleaser.

         I look around while people laugh and can pick out just one fellow victor in the crowd. Jack Umber is twenty-seven now (or twenty-eight?), bronze and glowing, but with that First Games refresher on my mind, I find I just don't know him well-enough yet to completely stop seeing the boy he was when he won his Games (missing teeth, bloody nose, black eye, so very many cuts and bruises) superimposed over the man he's become.

         Before I know it, Mr. Zimmer is complimenting me on providing a thoroughly satisfying Tour for everyone to watch (on some level this is a commentary on Emmy's stilted, unsatisfying Tour that proceeded it) and asking me if I have any last remarks I want to make to the audience here.

         And, for some reason, I say yes.

         Even if I can't say it as perfectly as I would like, my public speaking skills being somewhat lacking, I know basically what it is I would like to say. It will not all be true and I can only hope that the people back home (the ones who matter) will understand.

         I put on my brightest smile and I thank the Capitol. I thank them for the house, the clothes, the money, the food, the opportunities. I push the notion that most, if not all, of District 4 harbors similar feelings, dreaming of the chance to rebuild bridges burned with the Capitol during the recent war.

         On the one hand, I am kissing up. On the other hand, I am yearning for something further down the road- something better. There are many rotten things in the Capitol, but they don't extend down through every thing and every person. There has to be middle path. The further we diverge, the districts and the Capitol, the harder reuniting will be. The Capitol has had their little revenge- if only they could say, if only would say that it's been enough. If that were to happen, that impossible thing, for my part, I'd consider what I've been through to be worth it.

         But to think anything would happen because of me is to grossly overstate my own importance. I can only do the smallest of things. I could only volunteer for one girl. I can only nudge these people in what I believe is the right direction.

         I look at Jack as he looks at me. That's it, isn't it? That's also what Jack is doing (please don't let me be wrong). He's become like the Capitol to convince the Capitol. Would it be enough if we just (lied and) said we (the districts) were wrong? Look at us, please, and see that we're not so different after all.

         I admit that I've found it difficult gaining my footing as a victor, but I promise to keep on trying. I promise to try as hard as I can to make 4 a district they'll always think of fondly.

         "I want," I conclude with the absolute truth, "To make many more friends."

         …and never have to kill them. To keep them always.

         People clap. Mr. Zimmer thanks me. I thank him back. I need to sit for a second and compose myself, but I am free now to mingle, to eat, to enjoy the live music that picks up when I am done.

         "All that spunk you've got in you," Apple shakes her head a little and pats my shoulder.

         I slouch and finger the hem of my veil. "That took it out of me though… And I'm a little embarrassed now."

         "Well," she encourages me, "Just pick yourself up and we'll go bury that feeling in the business of making those new friends." She gives me her hand and coaxes me down onto the floor with everyone else. At first she sticks close by my side (and Aulie and Nar aren't far away either), but as I speak with whichever of the people want to chat with me and prove that I'm going to be all right- or whatever it is she's looking for- she gradually drifts further away.

         She is right though about my being able to move on from my discomfort to other thoughts. There are just _so many_ people who want to devote a moment or two of their time to talking to me. This is tiring too in a way, being the center of attention. I conclude my current conversation and drift toward one of the decked out tables where the food sits.

"You should feel free to indulge your appetite, Miss Gaudet," the president says to me. I go rigid with shock. "We are all aware of how much you like to eat."

         "W-well, as long as it doesn't seem rude," I stutter. Compared to the amount of eating I've seen so far at Capitol parties, the amount of food present seems excessive, but it does look appetizing- and gorgeous. More time and effort was probably put into styling the food into these wondrous displays of perfection than it was in gussying up me (not that I think that's a bad thing). "People keep wanting to talk to me and I was worried I shouldn't be trying to eat on and off between conversations," I sigh. When I'm feeling this nervous about this many things at once, even being around the president doesn't get to me as much.

         "Yes, do, eat," he encourages me, "…Assuming the fine things we have available are to your tastes."

         He pauses.

         I try not to gape. …Is the president of Panem about to make a Crispco crackers joke? I hope not.

         "…But I could always send an aide off to the store for some crackers, if those would be more to your tastes."

         …I think I am gaping a bit now. "N-no, thank you. What you have here is more than fine."

         Some of the people around us are laughing at his Games callback. He chuckles and I stiffen up. "I am always glad to oblige for a victor, my dear."

         I would like to get away from the president as quickly as possible, but that's a temptation that I shouldn't give in to.

         Quickly enough, however, he moves away from me, bidding me good evening and making a beeline for the pair of Jack Umber and Jeff Zimmer. I lean back against the table, feeling a bit weak in the knees.

         I attempt to revive myself by biting into an excessively fancily frosted cookie. Nar shows up out of somewhere looking a bit nervously in the direction of the president's wake (nice to know it's not just me) and pulls out a chair for me. "You should aim never to walk the edge of the knife, Miss Mags," he advises me. "…May I call you 'Miss Mags?'"

         Even if I were bothered, I don't have the energy to argue. "It's fine," I wave a hand through the air.

         Nar picks up a little paper plate and makes it his business to build me a small pyramid of sweets before setting the one-use dish on the table beside me. "…What will you do as District Four liaison?" I ask him.

         "Manage your appointments, for one thing. Apple can't be expected to do that all the time. She's in charge of tributes, mainly. Victors fall a bit more under the purview of my department. …I've tentatively scheduled your first television appearance with Jack Umber, for instance."

         "Oh," I nod, "I see." Kind of.

         "Hello, Nar," Tosca joins us with her serious-faced brother on her heels. "Cute speech," she regards me as impassively as usual. "Mags, this is my little brother, Coriolanus."

         He must be half Tosca's age, which makes him of reaping age, but still younger than me. His eyes are blue and biting. He looks like Tosca in this regard. "Hi," he says to me, "Congrats, I guess."

         "Nice to meet you," I respond, the same as I have to all the other people I'm bound to forget in a day or so (just too many all at once and I'll probably never see any of them again- I'm focusing my remembering on anything relevant about Nar).

         He really is like Tosca in his manner of heavy visual scrutiny. It's just he's not important. It's harder to feel uncomfortable under the gaze of a thirteen or fourteen year old.

         Tosca looks at Coriolanus for a moment like she expects him to say something more. "Let's take a picture," she suggests at length, shoving her comm device into Nar's fumbling hands. I quickly whip my mouth with the back of my hand and make sure my dress and veil are neat. Tosca stands to one side of me. Coriolanus flanks me on the other. We smile. Nar manages to pull off the task.

         "Enjoy yourself," Tosca takes her leave of me, brother still near at her side, "You've only got a smudge of spotlight left."

         "It's more than enough," I reply. I don't think I should say that it can't end soon enough. Things will be easier when it's not all about me. …at least I hope so.

         I eat the cookies and other assorted pastries Nar picked out for me. He suggests that he take Shy and me out for cake and coffee the next time we're all in the Capitol together. I wonder vaguely if he knows whether Shy makes such bold suggestions about looking at her bloomers to lots of people or whether I'm special in that regard, but it's just not the kind of thing I can ask. …not a man, at least. Would Sophie know something like that? Sunny?

         Apple rejoins us. "That looks good," she points out a cookie studded with dried cherries.

         "I already had two," I offer it to her.

         "You know I think you're a darling brat," she smiles, turning the cookie around between her long, decorated nails.

         "I like you too, Apple," I counter. This is just the kind of relationship we have.

         "Lycius!" bellows a large man with indigo freckles and that's enough to get Nar rushing off with a friendly skip in his step, leaving behind the chair he was dragging over to our position with its back facing us.

Before anyone else can commandeer the slim golden seat to some other location, a man settles down on it, sitting backwards to face us.He's wearing mainly gray and black and white, but his tie has green stripes. It comes as no surprise that the whole ensemble is very well tailored. Like me, his looks run toward the ordinary side, but the people in charge know how to make him handsome.

         "Hi Mags," he greets me. Jack Umber knows my name (I already know, I know so many times over, yet here I am reliving it- does it sound different in the Capitol?). I shouldn't find this as strange as I do. Everyone in Panem knows my name. I am the victor of the 12th Hunger Games.

         "That was some speech," Jack continues. I don't know if this is his way of congratulating me or he's just kidding around. …His way of congratulating me would probably include kidding around.

         "She wrote most of them herself based on the outlines I gave her. This one, however, was all Mags." Apple sounds very proud of me. I suppose it's related to how surprised she was that I actually agreed to write some of my own lines. For all of the Victory Tour until this point, I just let them feed the meat of the speeches to me. Even considering, it was exhausting.

         And then it hits me. Jack can tell the difference. After all my canned dialogue from 12 to 1, he knows I've addressed these Capitol people in basically my own words. My nervous embarrassment probably shows in my tense smile.

         "Oh, yes," he agrees with Apple, looking at me, all bright-eyed and (mock?) sincere, "No one can mangle a sentence like Miss Gaudet."

         …This is the part where I haul off and slug him, right?

         …Right?

         He stands up and towers over me. He stretches out his hand. "You dance in Four, don't you? …a bit more easily than you dance in Three? Or Seven?"

         I sit up straighter. I think I honestly tremble a little (why? is he scary?). I feel it run through my body. The silvery hem of my veil flutters against my back.

         "Do you," he leans over slightly, "Want to dance with me?"

         "Uh-uh," I gasp out.

         "Well," he turns to Apple, "How about you?"

         She agrees (I think she's flattered) and I drop down into her chair to watch as she swirls about the shimmering floor (the tiles are sort of opalescent) with Jack. They're a very Capitol-pretty pair. When they rejoin me, Apple is flushed, from exertion I think. She may not sit around all day, but she doesn't run or dance or swim of anything frequently either. She handles it gracefully. I surrender the seat back to her, although she probably would've let me keep it and switched to the one Jack or I vacated.

         So I'm standing now and Jack is back to standing in front of me. There is an unspoken question on his smiling lips. Something like, "Maybe you changed your mind?" But he just looks at me and keeps on smiling until I feel awkward again, the calm brought from watching him at a distant eroded.

         "The dancing in Four is kind of different," I tell him, an explanation to a question he never asked.

         "I'd like to see," he says. "The only time I've been to Four was on the Tour. That was kind of a long time ago now." He tips his head a bit to the side, remembering. When Jack Umber came to District 4, I must have been about six, but I don't remember it. I can only remember him on television. …the war wounds of the district were practically still smoldering. No one would've danced, even at a forced celebration. "…It's sort of pathetic, but the best thing I remember about Four was that no one threw anything at me there. Everyone was really quiet about their distaste for the situation."

         He's done it again. I've been hooked by a story. This is it, isn't it? This is how strangers connect. The stories that they share. Stories are not how Jack won the Hunger Games, but they are the way he lived on after. "Do you remember anything else?" I ask. I've taken the bait, even as I see it for what it is.

         "The smell of salt in the air. The sun shining on the water." He shakes his head. He looks nicer a bit tousled than perfectly coiffed and combed. …Or is it that I think that about everyone? "Nothing grand, I guess."

         "I don't think the things I'm going to remember from my Tour will be anything grand either." And people were generally nice to me. …But the bad things, the hard things, they stick out in my memory. It's probably the same for Jack.

         The band finishes playing one song. Another song begins. He's asking without asking again (or I read into his subtle shifts in expressions way too much).

         "I'll dance," I say.

         "With me?" he has to make sure. That he asks for this kind of clarification only intensifies my positive feelings toward him. The Capitol is not fond of asking permission (or it is only a meaningless token, where they ask, but don't care what you answer).

         "Yes."

         The closer I stand by him, the taller he seems to loom over me.

         I have trouble finding the rhythm of this unknown music.

         The song is fast.

         Jack barely touches me- only my hand.

         "The next song is a slow one," he can tell from the first few notes. What he means is, "Would you like to dance more? This one will be easier."

         I agree to it, but slower dancing, in this kind of context, means more touching, and even though Jack doesn't act strange about it, I find myself feeling increasingly embarrassed. Looking Jack right in the eye would be too excruciating (like looking into the sun), but looking away and watching myself be watched would be even more horrific.

         I take advantage of Jack's height and stare at his vest. The way the light shines on the rippling fabric starts to make me think of water.

         "You know, you don't have to think about what we're doing if you want to," Jack says, "You could tell me a story about yourself right now."

         "A story?" Yes, I have understood something about this man already that goes down deep into his being. It makes me wonder…when he was a little boy, what kind of stories did people tell Jack Umber?

         "Just a short one," he sort of shrugs.

         "I can't think of one just like that," I admit, defeated, but distracted.

         He's unphased though, as usual, and he turns his question around onto himself. "How about I tell you something else then? I'll tell you about this thing that's been on my mind lately."

         This mood is easier. I meet his lively eyes.

         "You see, I have this wish-"

         It's not a calculated answer; it's what just immediately comes to my mind. "Stop," I shake my head, "You don't say what you're wishing for. If you do, then it will never come true."

         Jack laughs. "You- you want my wish to come true?"

         …And why wouldn't I?

         He knows the song. He knows it's about to end. He dips me low and I resist the urge to flail around as someone else takes control of my center of gravity.

         …Is it because we're victors? Is "I want to live," the only wish we can have answered? Because, like most people, as soon as my wish was granted, I only had more. "Jack," I say without even knowing what I want to follow it, as he helps me right myself, "I-"

         "You," he takes over for me, "Are a good dancer, and even better when you don't think too much about dancing. …But now," someone or something else catches his eye across the room, "It is time for me to let you go and allow other people to enjoy your fine company."

         "Oh. Okay."

         "Have a lovely night," he nods to me, turns, and leaves.

 

         "You and he make a pretty pair," Aulie comes up alongside me.

         "Don't say that," I shush him.

         But he's a good friend too. Now that people have seen that I'll dance many of them want to try their hand at spinning me around the floor. Aulie subjects all of them to some kind of silent test before he lets any of them touch me and he makes sure that I get a break here or there.

         Eventually it's just too late and I'm just too tired. I ask to take some of the cherry cookies home to Papa and Faline, which seems to really amuse Nar (Apple tells him, "she's always like this"), who goes to tackle this newest in the ongoing series of small jobs with gusto.

         The party is hardly beginning to wind down, but, fortunately, no one forces me to stay. I don't see the president anywhere, but Jack is back on the dance floor, dipping some…um, ridiculously endowed…woman with purple hair to match her shimmering dress. There are lines showing under his eyes- he's human, he gets tired too- but he's still smiling.

 

         I leave, a bit vexed upon realizing I didn't talk to him about any of the things I had previously wished so much to discuss with him.

 

 

         When I awake, I am on the train, mere miles from District 4.

         Apple's first words to me that day are, "Almost home!" I drag along, tired from the late night proceeding this. Two small bags of cherry cookies from the party are sitting on the table alongside the bouquet of sunflowers, which someone has arranged in a vase. Amidst all the yellow another color has been inserted since I last laid eyes on them. A single pink rose.

         "Where'd this come from?" I quiz Apple.

         "Mmm…I don't know," she shakes her head. "Nar set those up."

         And he's back in the Capitol, not here to ask. I don't have to ask to know he didn't say anything about. He might not have even known himself, considering the press of people and things going on around us. The rose probably ended up falling into my flowers by accident and he just went along with it.

         I can see the waving streamers blowing over the highest rooftops in town when the train pulls in.

         Papa is waiting for me, along with Dan Armain- presumably because Dan has a sea salt rusted old truck he can drive us in. The truck is there too, but it has a new coat of blue paint. "Welcome back!" my father calls the moment he sees me, lifting his arms above his head.

         "It's gonna be the biggest Fall Festival ever!" Dan chimes in enthusiastically. "The whole town's been made up on the Capitol's dime! You've not gonna recognize some of it!"

         I run down to Papa, who folds me up in one of the tightest hugs he can manage (even pressed still against my skin, I can feel the twitch of nerves in his hand). "There was this Lycius fellow down here with a crew organizing local folks to work on it almost the whole time you were gone. …I missed you."

         "I missed you too," I respond.

         "Of course," he admits, "At least I got to see you on television every day."

         "So not fair," I laugh.

 

         I dress simply for the home affair. There's no speechmaking. I am paid attention to and captured on camera, but every eye in the district is not on me. I may be the guest of honor, but the party would go on without me.

         I give Faline the cookies I wanted for her, along with the bundle of flowers for good measure. She shows me a basket she made while I was away based on the method I've been attempting to teach even as I improve my own skills. When one of the cameramen compliments her work, she gives the item to him as a gift.

         Papa proudly shows me the homemade thank you card sent to me from the hospitalized children in 6, making sure the cameras capture it.

         The focus of the event is really just mingling around a big fish fry. Local news floats around. Dan Armain's niece is pregnant. 'Lito's father has been able to hire on two new hands at the boat shop because of the effects of my victory- parcel day brought more food in, which freed up money to be spent on things like repairs. Saigo Kanno has made a preliminary proposal to his girlfriend now that they had only one last reaping to outlast (some people think doing even this is inviting bad luck). Tylina is going to be taken on part-time as an assistant to the Crestas at their ropes and nets business (I think their very handsome son about five years older than us may have something to do with this).

         Mostly I just try to sit quietly and enjoy eating and hearing and seeing familiar things.

         Aulie gets drawn into helping fry the fish by some of the boys. Erinne sits and sketches some of the decorations. Irish and Spring bring out a makeup kit and set to work making over anyone who feels so inclined (it's mostly little girls and grandmothers- I think other people who are interested as kind of embarrassed).

         Apple asks Papa if he'd like to take a stroll and he agrees after a short hesitation. They head off at leisurely pace toward the shoreline.

         I'm alone in the crowd for a while. One of the cameramen is idly observing the footage (I don't know whether this is the official airing to the districts or some kind of rerun or what) of me in the Capitol last night. He notices me looking and comes over to tilt the palm-sized screen my way. "Take a look," he smiles.

         Onscreen I am twirling awkwardly in Jack's arms.

         "That Jack Umber, huh?" 'Lito speaks up from nearer than I realized.

         I try to read his face as he watches the dancing, but it's harder than anticipated. My own feelings are clouding my judgment. Whatever 'Lito thinks, he doesn't look away.

 

         Someone breaks out fireworks and the sky lights up with color. The cameras are careful to capture it all- the color as it bursts through the night, as it reflects on the water, as it illuminates my face.


	6. Part II, Chapter I

 

**Part II.**

**We Were To Come This Far**

 

         The call I am expecting, asking me to come into the Capitol and appear on television with Jack, never comes.  This is not to say that nothing regarding Games publicity, or Jack even, occurs in the months following the end of my Victory Tour and the lead up to the next Games.

         Instead, I participate by phone on a trivia game show as Jack's partner.  He and two Capitol contestants are at the filming in person and each of them gets a victor as a call-in backup.  One is a famous fashion designer who partners with Pal.  The third is a movie director who picks Hector.  I can hardly imagine a worse ally in the game than me.  I don't know almost any of the things they ask about, but Jack pleads ignorance and convinces me to make many best guesses, all of which are wrong and some, judging by the response they receive, hysterically so.  I take some solace in the fact that Pal and Hector are only marginally more successful players than I am.  Jack comes in last place.  I suspect that he purposely exaggerated his loss margin for maximum entertainment value.  Our consolation prize is a coupon for a lunch for two at some restaurant in the Capitol I've never heard of.  I tell Jack that he should just use it with whomever he likes, but he says he'd rather save it to use with me sometime when I'm around.

         I think this gives me the impression we will see each other soon, but we don't.

         I have a hard time deciding whether I am glad of this or disappointed.

 

 

         I go on to also be interviewed by telephone several times for magazines.  Each exchange is preceded by Nar calling ahead and asking if I'm willing to speak with some particular person for such-and-such a purpose.  He vets all of them on his own first as part of his job.

         He also sends several packages my way on and following my eighteenth birthday of cards and gifts from fans in the Capitol.  None of the presents on their own seem too over the top, but taken as a whole, it's kind of excessive.  I give some of the jewelry gifts to Faline and tell her to share them with her friends if she likes.

         I wonder how one fan knew my shoe size.

         I slowly read through all the cards and letters a few every evening before I go to bed.  All the people are very nice, although some of them say things I can't quite understand.  Nar tells me just to accept them graciously and issues a blanket thank you on my behalf.  I've heard that sometimes celebrities receive strange things from their fans, but if anything untoward was directed toward me, Nar weeded it out beforehand.

         The snacks (and there are _lots_ of snacks owing to my love of eating being a heavily publicized characteristic of mine) I spread around everywhere.  Papa picks out some he likes, we put together a gift basket's worth for the Armains, another for the Mirandes, the Beaumonts, the Ayus (I've never talked to them much since Aoko died, but I know they pay attention to me), and I still have enough left to share with my casual class, letting home every "student" take home one thing for themselves and one for each of their siblings.  I conduct all these group activities with an undercurrent of fear that someone will dub them too close to breaking the rule forbidding training for the Games even though no one ever picks up any weapons or fights.

         I receive some further birthday well wishes from the districts via cards from Sunny, Shy, Raisin (I think that Kayta's supposed signature was actually written by her because it resembles her writing so closely), Sophie, and Pal, who also calls me up and sings a birthday song I've never heard before, but gets really embarrassed immediately after and all but hangs up on me.

         I'm a bit surprised that I don't hear from Jack, but he's probably too busy for that kind of thing.

 

 

         No one comes out to visit me from the Capitol (not that I mind), but I correspond a bit with both Aulie and Apple.  They both seem happy with the goings-on in their own lives.

         The moments when I panic while wading in the ocean or handling dead fish come less frequently.  When I fill my days, I'm less likely to dream, so I try to pack my schedule to avoid nightmares.  I work on my ostensible weaving talent (I think Faline is better than me); I help Papa and his crew; I go swimming.

         'Lito's dad is making him work a lot at the boat shop (I'm not sure if it's just a side effect of their being more work available there or if there's some special reason), but he comes by the house often when he's free.  Sometimes I don't want to talk to him, or anyone, really, for that matter, and I carefully peek out of an upstairs window from beneath the curtain and watch as he stares at the place for a while before leaving.

         One day when I asked Faline what she liked best about watching the Victory Tour she turned the question over to 'Lito and he said I looked "so pretty."

         I don't exactly avoid him after this, but when it's just the two of us, not always, but sometimes, a weird feeling creeps up in me.  I like him as a friend, but I don't want him to think of me like…like I'm pretty.  Like that.

         He is nice and clever with his hands.  His dark eyes are very engaging.  But I don't think I like him that way.  And I know I don't want to be liked.  It's not 'Lito's fault.  It's not just him and I can't tell him how to feel.  But I don't want to be liked that way by anyone.

 

 

         Soon enough, spring unfolds.

 

         Like a game of hot or cold, it's getting warm, hot, hotter...

 

         I go out to observe the pleasant effects of the final Parcel Day my win has gifted to Four's people.  Most people don't even pay attention to me, probably because I've been around for the event all but one time, but there are some casual 'thank you's given out, along with an undercurrent of disappointment at the end of their good fortune.

         A girl, Maria, who looks to be about my age, though I don't know her (she lives further from town, maybe, or she could have dropped out from school earlier- it's not as if that's entirely uncommon), makes an impression on me with her enthusiasm for the future even though that's it for the Capitol-given bounty.  She makes a big fuss over showing me her baby, who sleeps, comfortable and oblivious, in a sling across her chest.  "I was able to save more, see," she explains, "Because of the parcels, and stretch things.  …If you hadn't won, I don't think I would've been able to afford to keep him."

         I'm happy for both of them, but a little embarrassed for the attention.  Maria can keep her son for now, but someone in those straits can hardly be sure things are set for the long term.  There's only so much my win has accomplished for the district, but, "…Is there anything?" I grasp at the air.  I feel like there's no way I can do otherwise.

         "We get closer all the time, you know," Maria looks down at the baby, "The more he means to me, the more I'll fight to keep him.  I know I'm going to manage somehow."

         I admire her optimism.  "Yeah," I try to agree with her, "Hang in there, both of you."

         Papa is disappointed he didn't come along with me when I tell him about Maria and her son.  I tell him he should be happy he doesn't have too many little kids in his life to worry about anymore.  I say it in a joking way, but there's something serious about my feelings as well.  The more people you love, the more weaknesses you have.

         I lie awake worrying about who might be chosen for the next Games.  I'm as bad as everyone else, hoping that it'll be someone that I don't know.

 

         So just like that, the season for the Games comes around again, beginning, for me, with a letter from Nar outlining my general responsibilities within the Games structure as a victor and mentor (although he also mentions that Apple should be aware of all the relevant rules and strictures and able to provide me whatever guidance I require along the way).

 

         After that comes Salvador's remark that he might want to volunteer.  I can't exactly encourage him, but I can't discourage him either.  I try to react as neutral as possible when I tell him the decision is up to him.

         "But you'd be proud, right?" he presses me.

         "…If it were to help someone who needed it," I relent.  I know that pretty much anyone who could possibly be picked as tribute could need it.  I just don't want Salvador to do something rash, least of all because he thought it was what I wanted from him.  I know I am a horrible hypocrite because I do think a volunteer has better odds than someone reaped, but it's not like those odds are all that much improved.  I will not deal that killing blow, but in some way, I am going to be responsible for what happens.

 

         The third signal that the Games are at hand is a package from Erinne.  "Spring and I came up with this one for you to wear to the Tribute Selection Ceremony," her note reads, "I hope it's comfortable."

         Inside the package is a pink and white dress, two hair clips decorated with very realistic fake flowers in white, pink, and yellow, and a pair of pink and yellow sandals with lots of straps.

         I show the outfit to Faline.

         "What did you think you were going to wear?" she asks me, "Your same old reaping dress?"

         I flush, seeing as she's hit the nail right on the head.  "Uh, I guess you have a point," I answer.  It would probably be a weird thing to do.

         "If Miss Apple is wearing green," Faline pauses, "I'm sure she will be; you'll stand out in this."

 

         I have a nightmare that Faline's name is called again.  There's no rule against it that I know of.  I don't think it's statistically all that likely since she's taken no tesserae and her name is only in there one time more than last year, but-  Even though I can't recall any time that someone's name who was called once was called again and I'm sure they'd mention it if it were…  I think of Pal's five living sisters at the time of his victory.  I think about Teejay's sister, reaped after him; Luna's little brother whose cousin I killed in his place.

         I have no siblings, but they hardly means they can't hurt me if they want to.

         I don't tell Faline about the dream.

 

         Some of the kids from "Survival Skills Club" as they've taken to calling it (I don't call it anything in particular) want to spend the evening before the reaping with me.  They think it'll be good luck or something, but I don't want to.

         I spend the day with Papa.

         "You know that most of it is out of your hands, right?" he says, "Whatever happens, you can't beat yourself up over it, okay?  You made it this far."

         "I know," I say, but that doesn't mean I feel it.

         I go to bed early.

         The morning is a blur.

         It's like I'm lost in some waking dream until I'm snapped halfway into reality: "District Four's first- and so far, only- victor, Mags Gaudet!" District 4 escort Apple Smitt says my name like a cheer.

         And that's my cue.  I stand up and wave.  People who know me wave back.  There's polite clapping.

         "And, perhaps soon enough, there will be a new victor joining her!"

         Apple, I think, can convince herself to believe in anything.  I'm already reasonably sure that we will not be repeat winners.  No district has had back-to-back wins yet and I see no reason why 4 would be the first.  Unlike Apple, I can't be optimistic so easily.  Maybe I have to tell myself right off the bat that we can't win this year to soften the inevitable blow.  Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not going to do whatever I can to support our tributes.  It isn't going to stop me from getting all torn up inside.

         The obligatory film, the obligatory speeches.  I think I have earned the right to ignore them, if nothing else.  I tune out the words and allow my eyes to scan the crowd.  Papa looks solemn and stiff, but I know the hint of relief of his posture- he has one child and she will not die in the arena (all he had to do was watch her kill).

         It's like every other Reaping Day.  They may blur together, but to a greater or lesser degree, I remember them all.  Pretty much everyone is either openly or privately scared.  Even old people without any families are on edge.  I can't blame them.

         I'm not sure if things are better or worse now that people generally go along with the Games and all their rigamarole.  I was six years old when District 1's Jack Umber became the most famous district citizen in all of Panem (replacing the previous holders of that title- the leaders of the districts' rebellion).  Riots broke out on nearly every stop of his Victory Tour (not 2- perhaps 2 had accepted these things), _including_ the supposedly Capitol-loving district he came from.  I've heard that he received a lot of death threats.  I don't think it was fair how much people in the districts hated him.  _Someone_ had to win.  The Capitol would've done everything they could to have their winner.  And it had to be someone who killed.  The Gamemakers beleaguered the last few pacifist tributes without mercy, even if the Capitol's commentators would never say so.  "You play the game our way, or you die."  They sent their message.

         I don't know if people in the Capitol truly felt differently about Jack than the people in the districts, but the Capitol's television programs certainly loved him.  …and still do, I would guess.  I don't think it's only being the first that makes him the most visible victor.  Jeff Zimmer always interviews him at the end of each Games, asking his opinion about the new victor.  "That's a tough girl," is what he said about me.  I think that's what's likable about him as a television personality.  He's very straightforward.

         …The fact that I am spending so much time mulling over Jack Umber is perhaps a sign that I am just as frightened as all the other people present (well, the ones who can't be reaped).  They make the ceremony drag on on purpose, I think.  There's something terrifying to be found in waiting.

         Jack Umber said I was "a tough girl," but I wonder how he meant it.  I'm not very tough, but you don't have to be the toughest to win.  Just tough enough.

         "Shaya Current!" Apple pulls from the girls.

         Shaya's mother begins screaming hysterically.  I know Shaya, marginally (how strange and horrifying it would be if I were put in the position of having to mentor someone I knew well).  We were in the same year in school, though more often than not in separate classes.  I remember her as a good swimmer, a volunteer lifeguard who watched over younger children as they played.  She's the daughter of the mayor.

         I try to picture Shaya as the victor of the 13th Hunger Games.  In the movie in my mind, I am hugging her onstage in front of a Capitol audience.  I am crying, but Shaya is able to hold herself together.  "What a trooper," Jack Umber is grinning at Jeff Zimmer, "And such fine form in the water."

         My delusional daydream shatters as Apple directs Shaya to speak into the microphone.  She cannot speak her own name without sobbing.  Mayor Current is silent but shivering.

         "There, there, dear," Apple says to her, "It's okay to take a second.  How about a deep breath?  I'll pick the boy."

         I think about Apple- my opinion of her now, knowing her pretty well (I assume), as opposed to when she was just "the district escort."  Everyone here but Papa and me still basically feel that way (though my 'class' has gotten the chance to encounter Apple as the strange and interesting person that she is- foreign and flippant, but with her heart squarely in the right place).  She is being as nice to Shaya as she can be, but it won't save her.  No one cares.  They don't think she's being nice at all.

         She reaches into the giant fishbowl and plucks out a name.  "Salvador Chavez," she reads with less enthusiasm.  And when all eyes dart to Salvador, silently identifying him, I notice a twitch in her smile that likely passes the rest of them by unknowingly.  Salvador is one of 'mine.'  She's recognizing him.

         Yes, Apple, that's what it's like.  That's how hard it is when the tribute is just someone you know from around town.

         Salvador goes from surprised to grimly stoic.  He puts on tough grin for the crowd.  If he can keep it up, the audience will like him.  I've already seen that he's a strong and determined person.  And he has a lot of spunk.  My experience speaks to the fact that spunk entertains.

         "Hey," he greets Apple onstage, acting amazingly calm and ordinary despite the situation (it's the same as I was, maybe- the feeling that it's not even real), "Nice to see you again.  I don't know if you remember me, but we met at the end of the year in Mags' yard."  He looks from Apple to Shaya and then out over the crowd, where his grandmother is clutching her string of worry beads, his mother is pulling at her hair, and his sister has the edge of her dress balled up in her fists.  "I'm Salvador Alfonso Chavez, I am sixteen years old, and I will be proud to represent District Four in the Thirteenth Hunger Games."

         His bravado seems to perk Apple up a bit.  She convinces the people to give him a bit of applause.

         Salvador tells some kind of lie about how he was planning on volunteering anyway unless the other boy didn't want him, but I even with what he told me last week, I seriously doubt it.  Shaya stops crying, but doesn't speak up.  Her father scribbles a note and passes it to Apple revealing that she is indeed Shaya Current and she is eighteen.

         This is all a terribly bitter scene.  I am glad I am not asked to contribute in any manner but my presence.

         My real part will begin soon enough.  But if I'm already wondering if either of them can win, I guess it has already begun.

         The crowd splinters as Apple and I follow our tributes away.  They'll say their goodbyes now and I'll say mine.  The difference between probably permanent and obviously temporary is hundreds of thousands of miles.

         "There weren't any volunteers," Apple says.  Is she disappointed?  Did she think someone might from the group that's been hanging around me?  For my part, I'm relieved.  It would be hard to deal with someone thinking they were going to be like me.  The Capitol might like District 4 becoming the great sea of volunteers, but I don't think it would do us any favors in our relationship with the other districts.  There have been no back to back wins.  My victory is target enough on their backs.

         Someone must have told Papa where to find us.  "I ran into Aulus," he says.  "I gave him your bag."

         "Thanks, Papa."  I wouldn't have to bring anything along if I didn't want to- the Capitol would see to it that everything I needed was provided.  But in my down time, I'd rather wear my own clothes and handle some of my own things.  Hopefully it will make Shaya and Salvador feel more at home too.  "…You take care, okay."

         "I'll be watching you on television everyday," he says.  "I'll really be watching every part this time too."

         "It's okay, Papa- I don't think anyone's going to call you out for looking away at the gruesome parts."  It's my job (my duty) not to look away.  Papa should take it easy.  My victory should have earned him at least that much.

         "Do take care of yourself, Mr. Gaudet," Apple pipes up.

         "Could you say goodbye to Faline for me?" I ask.  "And 'Lito?"  They're not here and I don't want to rush around to find them, particularly not 'Lito.  We'll see each other again.  Acting too frantic like that might give him the wrong impression.

         "Of course, sweetheart," he agrees, looking down at me.  "I will," he adjusts his gaze upward to meet Apple's.  "Thank you for thinking of me."

         Papa is a harder read, but it's enough for me to think that Apple must really have a crush on him.  …in any other situation than with the Games bearing down on us, my first impulse would be to rush off and tell Aulie how right we were, but there's little time for distractions now.  "Goodbye, Papa.  I love you."

 

         I ride out to the train with Apple, Shaya, and Salvador in relative silence.  "I'm going to do this, Mags," Salvador tells me.  I think he's trying to psych himself up- mind over matter, right?  "If I believe I can do it, maybe I can" - a theory that has something to it.  But, in the face of these odds, I think to truly believe in yourself for the entire journey, you would have to be sort of deluded.  Everyone has their doubts.

         "It's my job, isn't it, to properly introduce you?" Apple considers the tributes and I.

         "We both know her," Shaya answers.  "Not just from TV.  Personally, ma'am."

         "And I know Apple too," Salvador tells Shaya.

         Maybe she knows and maybe she doesn't.  I don't think she cares because she doesn't respond to him.  She addresses me instead, twisting a small piece of teal ribbon that might be her token around and around between her fingers.  "You didn't have any grand plan that let you win.  There were basically two things behind it.  You stayed away from the other tributes for the first half and you got lucky in the second half."

         "Someone's sharp!" Aulie speaks up.

         As happy as I am to see him (oh, it's good to know that someone has my back), I am wondering about that.  "Are you even supposed to be here?"

         "Hmph, what a welcome," he pouts, looking to Apple and the others for sympathy while I slug him in the arm (which doesn't ruffle him any as far as I can tell) and then make up for it with a hug.  "I am Aulus Strong," he introduces himself over my head, while he messes up my hair by rubbing his hand on the top between my buns, "Your unofficial co-coach, returning to the position by your mentor's invitation.  If you are so inclined, you may call me 'Aulie.'"

         "Hello," Shaya says.

         "Hey, Aulie," Salvador is more enthusiastic.  "I remember seeing you on TV with Mags.  …Do you think there's any way I can get my arms half as big as yours before the Games start?"

         "Ah, don't I wish, kiddo," he smiles, though his first disappointment of the Games comes when he finds out that neither of them have nicknames ("What kind of nickname would a girl named 'Shaya' even have?" Shaya wonders, sort of annoyed).  Salvador does volunteer "Sal" as an option for himself, but it's not what he's normally called back home.  He's just Salvador.

 

         I feel terribly uncomfortable, so it's easy to imagine Salvador and Shaya only feel worse.

         "…Can I look around?" Shaya asks, cocking an eyebrow.

         I'm relieved for the break in the pressure.  "Feel free," I shrug.

         That's good enough for her.  She turns and head off through the train.  Salvador looks from me to Aulie to Apple and then back to me.  "Me too," he half asks, half declares.  I can't do more much than shrug at him too.

         He moves away briskly, though I doubt he has much interest in actually catching up with Shaya.  Though, what do I know?  As far as my knowledge extends, until now, they were only just aware of one another.

         "Cheer up, Mags, dear," Apple puts an arm around my shoulders, "You'll get the hang of it."

         Thinking back on all of Apple's behavior that I've seen up through now, I have to reconsider her (and Aulie, to a lesser degree).  Is she amazing or amazingly deluded?  What sets a person up to be able to do the job that she does?  I know she has feelings just like anyone else.  I know she feels sad, or at least disappointed, when 4's tributes die.  How does she do this the way she does, year after year?  …what can I do to be a bit more like Apple?  It's a question I never realized I would stand here and ask.

         "This is going to be awful," I groan.  I don't see any point in holding back my true feelings as long as my tributes aren't there to hear.

         "You never know," Aulie counters, "And you've got to stay on top of your game if you want it to be any other way."

         He's right, I suppose.

         "Let's go, get a very aromatic snack, sit down to watch the other live tribute selections, and see how long it takes those two to show up," Apple suggests.  I don't see any reason to counter her idea.

         The Avox with the long blond hair is in the kitchen.  I can't exactly say that seeing her makes me feel better, but her presence only adds to the familiarity of the situation.  On one level, I know I'm safe- I don't have that deep-seeded fear of dying rushing through me- but on another, it feels like last year all over again, just with friends around me rather than strangers.  I'm going back.  I'm going back.

         At Apple's request, the pretty Avox heats up some kind of pre-baked fruit tarts for us.  "Nothing says Capitol like ruining your appetite for regular meals, right?" Aulie jokes.

         The tarts do smell good.

         "Thanks," I linger to speak with- well, at, the Avox.  "Thanks for this and everything before too."

         She dips her head and her bangs shift gently across her forehead and over her eyes.

         I think about my arrival into 1 on the Victory Tour.  I wonder where she came from before all this.  Who she could possibly have been for anyone to think she deserved something like this.  I'm not sure there's any safe way to ask her.  I don't want to cause her any trouble.  However hard her life might be, she puts up a good front.  I hope she really is happy, in whatever small ways she can manage to be, as people nearly always can.

         "Maaaags," Aulie verbally yanks me along.

         We sit down in time to see the last bit of District 8's live broadcast.  There's a brown-haired boy smiling while tears slide down his cheeks.  He has very crooked teeth.  There's a black-haired girl in a gray dress and green headscarf who doesn't smile or cry, but breathes through her open mouth.  Pal, standing behind them, looks…rather determined, I have to say.  I doubt it's what anyone would consider his default expression.  What, I wonder, does it mean?

         Then again, I over-think things, don't I?

         I manage to eat a tart, a plum one, during 9's reaping.  It probably helps that I don't have to watch Luna blanch at the calling of a relative this year.  The escort, Denia, an acquaintance of Apple's, is wearing a gold dress supposed to look like wheat.  Luna looks bored.  I think that's the expression she wears as a defense against the world.

         "That victor, Luna," says Salvador, "She really scares me."

         "Just hope her tributes aren't like her," Aulie grins at him.

         Salvador brushes a hand against his cheek.  There's nothing there, so I can only assume he's self-conscious about having probably done a little private crying.  He comes around to sit with us, fitting into the space between me and Aulie.  "Most tributes aren't like their mentors," Salvador concludes after thinking on it for a few moments, "A tribute more like their mentor might win."

         "Does that mean you want to be like Mags?" Aulie inquires.

         "Well, I want to live," Salvador quips in return.  It's part joke, part sincere.  I see it as a definite parallel between Salvador and me.

         …and I played pretty well, as I gathered over the course of my Tour.  But that's not all there is to winning the Games.  That's nothing compared to pure luck and a willingness to kill.

         The District 10 reaping begins without any sign that Shaya is planning on joining us.  Onstage in 10, Emmy Pollack isn't responding to the announcement of her name, but that hard-working escort is undaunted.  "And aren't you Emmy Pollack?" he turns away from the crowd to face her.

         "Oh, yes," she says, "Yes, that's right.  I am."  The applause she receives from the audience is rather subdued.  What can 10 do with their victor but pity her?

         "I think someone should check on Shaya," Apple declares.  "Would you rather, Mags?"

         "She might prefer it be you," I suggest, although it's a difficult thing to judge.

        

         "You don't mind if she doesn't eat with us?" Apple asks when she returns.

         "If she…doesn't want to…"  I don't know quite what to make of it.  I mean, I'm sure there are tributes who don't want to eat with the entourage, but I don't know how I'm supposed to react to it.  Am I supposed to make her?  The exact chain of expected events makes me uncomfortable enough.  The unexpected is even worse.

         "I believe as mentor it's your call," Apple tells me.

         I try to get a grip and be more decisive.  "She can eat on her own," I say.  "But she should at least try and eat something.  We'll make her a plate."

        

         Salvador is understandably impressed by the lunch spread.  "Did you gain a lot of weight after you won the Games?" he puts his blunt, bright-eyed gaze on me.

         "Ten pounds," I confirm.  If it hadn't been gradual, it would've been jarring.  And is this it or will there be more?  I can't say I know.  I don't think I eat too much.  I just eat…more often?  More regular amounts?

         "You didn't get taller though."

         "I think it's too late for that."

         "You'd have to get special hormone shots," Aulie muses.

         I would never have even thought of it, though with the Capitol I can't be all that surprised that it exists as a possibility.  "I'm fine being short."  I pick out a large plate for Shaya so I can put a large variety of things on it in hope that something is to her tastes.  I focus on items that aren't too strange or hard on the stomach based on my experience.  "Excuse me," I slip off with the finished platter in hand.

         I knock on the door labeled with her name.  "Hey, Shaya.  I brought you some lunch.  Can I bring this in?"

         She opens the door.  "I'm mortified, you know?" she sighs.  "I'm going to die at eighteen and soon enough all anyone but my family will remember will be the manner of my inevitable death and how I couldn't even say my name onstage."

         "Not everyone," I answer.

         "Oh, right.  You'll remember.  …but will it matter, Mags?  Eighteen years, all for nothing?"

         I don't know what I can tell her.  "Thinking that won't make it better though."

         "Yeah, but-"

         "You can't stop," I sigh too, "I know."

         She takes the full plate from me and turns away.  "Thanks for lunch at least."

         I hope Shaya enjoys her lunch more than I do.

 

         "There's been more talk about the sponsorship idea," Aulie informs me, "But with no official announcement at this point, I doubt it's going to make it into this year's Games.  …Next year maybe.  Jack's support seems to have been pretty powerful though.  When he talks about it, it gets people talking."

         "What kind of things does Jack say about sponsoring tributes?"  I mean, he's Jack, so I'm sure he thinks of something, but I can't picture it.

         "Well, in person it's just talk, but on television he shows clips of well-received tributes who were in need at some point or other and then gets into 'what ifs' of if they'd gotten a sponsor gift at some critical moment."

         "That sounds interesting," Salvador pipes up.

         "All tributes who didn't make it, huh," I imagine.

         "Ha," Aulie chuckles, "You'd think.  And you're mostly right, but you know Jack.  He can be pretty tongue and cheek with this stuff.  He's shown himself, for one."

         "He would, huh?" Salvador nudges me.

         I give a forced grin.  It would do no good to protest against my role as resident District 4 Jack Umber specialist.

 

         Salvador bothers me for some general Games-related advice, although I have to protest that most of it I've told him before in the days he spent hanging around me after my return home.  I fold my hands and look down at my knees.  One new thing comes to me.  "Don't ally with anyone you won't be happy dying alongside," I say.  Not that you wouldn't mind killing- better odds you'll both end up dead anyway.  "Don't ally with anyone you wouldn't be happy to see win either, since you'll probably have second thoughts about the alliance pretty fast otherwise."

         "…probably go alone then," he posits.

         "Oh," I see that we're headed into the tunnel.  "Get up," I urge Salvador, "Go look.  We're almost in the Capitol."

 

         We are blinded by the rush of sunlight over water and the brilliant city metropolis together.

         I feel a tremor run through Salvador as he takes my hand.

         ...Or maybe it's my own.


	7. Part II, Chapter II

         "Oh," Shaya murmurs, "There are lots of people…"  She reaches back and touches her hair.  Somehow it's good to see her caring about how she looks.  She isn't out of the running for this yet.

         "Look, Shaya," Salvador points.

         Our arrival is airing live on a big screen attached to a building.  I am captured rolling my eyes a bit as Apple and Aulie preen.  "You're so stuck up, Mags," Shaya says, but there's a lightness to it.  She can say whatever she wants to me if it'll help her blow off steam.

         "You were stuck up back home," Salvador counters with his opinion once we've piled into the car that will take us to the Training Center.

         Before Shaya can get upset at this, Apple primly interjects that, "I am proud to be seen as believing I am above other people everywhere I go.  …You get better service that way."

         Shaya shakes her head and Salvador laughs.

         When we arrive at the Training Center Nar is there waiting for me.  "You ready to be in front of the cameras?" he asks as I attempt to introduce him to my tributes.

         "What do you mean?"  Haven't I been in front of them enough today already?  But I'm not the main attraction (I can't say I'm not glad for that).

         "You're on the schedule to go make Games-related commentary with Jack Umber."  He taps his watch in a hurrying gesture.

         Was someone supposed to inform me of this beforehand and then forgot?  Did they tell me and _I_ just forgot?  Either is possible.  "Umm, excuse me then, everyone," I dip my head to my group.

         "Don't fret," Apple waves me off, "I'll handle everything."

         I may not be ready to fret, but Shaya looks about to object.  Nar raises his hand above his head and snaps, bringing a fancy green car up alongside the sidewalk.  Nar holds the door to let me in.  "I didn't realize I'd just get scheduled in like that," I comment.

         He gives an order to the driver and comes around to take the seat on my left.  I try to wave at everyone as I leave, but the windows are awfully darkened.  I'm not sure they can see me trying.

         After the brief bit of noise at the mouth of the Training Center, the near solitude of the closed car feels thick and oppressive.  "…Do you know how Ms. Tosca's doing?" I attempt to make small talk.

         "She's still happily with the Games-filming team.  Her Victory Tour stuff for you went over quite well so she'll have that gig again this year assuming she wants it."

         "That's nice," I respond quietly.  I can't say I took to Tosca, but I would rather hear something good about her than something bad.

         Nar doesn't seem to feel the need to say anything.

         "Thanks for sending me the birthday cards and stuff."

         He shrugs.  "It's just part of the job."

         I feel more and more uncomfortable.  I smooth the fabric of my pretty pink and white dress over my knees.  I should've asked if I couldn't worn the dress Pal made me to the reaping.  Clothes that belonged more definitively to me might have provided a bit more comfort.  Though I can't stand myself for thinking this way.  If it's not going to help me as a mentor, it shouldn't matter.  These are not my Games.  Who am I to complain when I'm guaranteed to live?

         It doesn't take long for us to reach the television studio, but all the things I've thought about on the way have only made me less suited to make entertaining programming.  I follow Nar into the place rather dully.  There's all kinds of activity brewing around us, up and down the elevator and every hall we pass through.  None of it distracts Nar though, who knows exactly where he's going.  I just follow mindlessly along.

         But I know we're there when I see Jack.  "Hi!" he waves at me, hand raised high, about level with his face.  He's wearing layers, as he often does, and the one underneath is a green t-shirt sporting the official District 1 emblem bracketed with the words "First Annual Hunger Games."

         I must make a weird face when I read it, because he starts laughing.  I'm ready to approach him at that very moment, but Nar diverts me through a door to the left.  "First, hair and makeup!" he states firmly, leaving me in the hands of several colorful unknown entities.

         The hair stylist directions my attention to a woven bag she has sitting beside her workstation.  "I brought my own little Mags along with me today since I thought she might enjoy seeing her namesake," the plum-haired woman informs me.

         I stop myself before I can ask, "What?" in my typical confused fashion.  There a dog in the bag.  A tiny, yippy sort of dog (to the best of my knowledge we don't have any of those sorts of dogs back home, but there appear to be plenty in the Capitol).  "Oh," I say instead.  "Oh," indeed.  What else can I say?  Am I supposed to be…flattered?  This woman named her dog after me.

         I lean down and address the hazelnut-colored dog.  "Hi there."  That's the best I think I can do.

         And it seems to be good enough for the hairdresser.  She chatters on about this and that as she unwinds my pinned up hair and brushes it out before fixing it back up in basically the exact same style, except it's all fresh now and she does my own hairdo better than I manage to.  "There you go, sweetheart," she pats me on the shoulder when she's finished.

         "Umm, thank you."  It seems like most of the production people I meet are quick to act really familiar with me.  Do they treat everyone like this?  Obviously interacting with victors is old hat for them, but that's not to say we have no effect on them, what with my namesake there and all.

         The makeup artist takes over with me next.  He has considerably more to do than his counterpart.  I'm not sure whether it's any help to him that I'm not wearing any makeup to begin with.  Everyone has to wear makeup on camera though, he tells me.  It just makes you look better.  "Jack too?" I inquire, although I'm concerned that I shouldn't be talking while he works on me.

         "Of course!  We just do our best to make it look natural.  It's to make him look his best self.  Being all made up isn't really Jack's style."

         "No," I agree.  He tends toward the plain.  It's part of what offsets the Capitol-ish side of him.

         For his part, the makeup artist tells me to "Knock 'em dead," when he's done, which doesn't exactly offend me, but is kind of an awkward thing to say to a victor, I think.

         "You look really nice," Jack says as I take my seat beside him.  "I hope you've been doing well.  I haven't heard much about you and I haven't heard from you in a while either."

         "You missed my birthday."  I'm still slightly thrown by his unusual t-shirt, but I can't imagine we have more than a moment or two of conversation available to us before we go on to talk about, well, whatever I've come here to talk about.  The Games, obviously.  Just what aspect?

         Jack tilts his head a little, one eyebrow lifting.  "What?  No, I didn't."

         "You didn't send me a card or anything," I insist, "…Or if you did it got lost in the mail or you wrote something in it that Nar didn't want me to see."

         "I said happy birthday to you and sang you a song on my show," Jack blusters.  He seems upset, as well as sort of confused.  "You didn't see?  …No one called you up and told you to watch?"

         "You're on in five, Jack," a heavily tattooed man informs us.

         "No," I shake my head, "No one did that."

         "What!" he grumbles, incredulous, "I specifically asked that you be informed about it!  I thought it was going to be so fun, surprising you.  …No wonder you didn't call me up about it or anything.  …To tell you the truth I was kind of concerned I'd made you mad since I never heard anything about it."

         I should've known Jack, of all people, wouldn't have forgotten about me (it just seemed self-centered to give it too much thought).  "Well, thank you for the kind effort."

         "I'm sure someone's got it on tape," Jack rubs his forehead (in the back of my mind I wonder if that's going to disturb his makeup), "I mean, it's not anything amazing, but if you don't get to see it, there was no point."

         "So, um," I change the subject, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but what are we going to do here?  No one told me."  Am I that easily forgotten?  Do people assume I know more than I do?

         "We're commenting on the reapings.  But don't say "reaping."  Say "choosing" or "selection."  The official name is the "Tribute Selection," you know."

         "I think I've heard Apple call it that."  Jack's done this for a number of years, but not with other victors.  With Mr. Bronze and Mr. Zimmer.  "…is there some kind of new program format here?" I inquire.

         "Oh, this way just worked out best for editing purposes.  Bronze and Zimmer'll hardly be denied their take on it, but I wanted to work with you and it didn't seem necessary, or an improvement on the show it'll make, for all four of us to be crammed onstage together."

         I have to agree that I'll probably make for more interesting television if I'm not seated with such imposing figures as the official Games commentators.  While I seem to ultimately be able to get along with both of them, I'm bound to be stiff in that setting compared to the lower level of formality Jack inspires.  Jack makes me laugh.  That's probably what he's going for here.  I'll make him look good.  …though there shouldn't be anything funny about the reapings.

         But people can be entertained in a way by sad things too.  It's what Jack has made his life about, right?  Entertainment?

         That's why I'm here.  To (because I) play along.  "How will it work?"

         "They're going to play the ceremonies and we'll watch and comment on it.  I know that sounds really boring, but it's all in the editing.  And don't worry about having something to say about everything.  You and I are kind of just the color commentators.    It's Bronze and Zimmer who have to carry the show."

         "Ready when you are, Mr. Umber," some kind of cameraman or tech wearing a very elaborate headpiece cues Jack.

         He looks to me before responding.  "You think you're good to go?"

         "I think you like it when I don't know what I'm doing anyway," I posit.

         "Perhaps," he proceeds with a smile, "On your mark, Mr. Silverus!"

         The tape begins to roll.

         The first thing that stands out to me in District 1 is that Jack isn't wearing the shirt he is now- or if he is, it's covered up beneath the dressier clothes he's wearing.  It makes me wonder when he busted this nonsense out.  I still can't get over the…sheer audacity?  I mean, this is Jack, I can't be entirely surprised he'd wear it, but who made it?  What have people been saying to him about it?

         The setup for the reaping in 1 is very decorative.  "That's awfully pretty," I say.   "Why thank you," Jack jokes, like he was in charge of it or I was speaking about him (it's hard to tell which he's aiming for here).  "I think this is going to be a good year for my district," he carries on proudly, as per his usual deal.  He shares new information about his tributes beyond the basic stats shown onscreen.  …If viewer sympathies were a bigger factor, I might even think this extra time for Jack to talk up his tributes to the general public were worth the trade off of the time lost face to face with his tributes.

         "Samantha, called "Sammy," is vice-captain of her school's girls football team.  She's quick and she's smart," he says cheerfully over the footage of Sammy climbing the stage and the onscreen presentation of her generic age-height-weight stats.  "She loves animals and has always wanted to come and visit our fantastic Capitol zoos."

         "Your tributes in One look so happy," I wonder as the boy takes the stage.

         "It's all a matter of attitude," Jack declares, before going on to speak similarly about the habits and talents of the eighteen-year-old boy.

         "Two continues its trend of the greatest number of volunteer tributes," Jack informs the audience as the scene moves on.

         "Why is that?"

         "Not to get down on the rest of us, but over the years I've come to believe that Two has a more developed sense of community spirit and loyalty than any other district."

         "You've got to admire that," I agree.  Back home they're probably thinking that if they never hear another word from me about solidarity it'll be too soon, but this is the cause I've essentially wedded my life too since the moment I volunteered.  Solidarity within 4.  …but when I look at Jack I am all too aware of another sort of possible bonds.  As a whole, I like my fellow victors.

         2 adds to its growing volunteer count with the boy, but not the girl.

         Beto's twitchy affect onstage in 3 is more eye-catching than either of the tributes.  He has on an even thicker pair of glasses than the last time I saw him.  I can't believe that the Capitol can't make a thinner pair or something else to adjust his vision more efficiently.  It makes me think he likes to look like that.  He's a purposeful sort of guy, in my opinion.

         "You look so tiny up there!" Jack chirps as the camera cuts from an establishing shot of 4 to focus on me, sitting in my chair onstage, then standing up to wave.

         I don't know what to say about that.

         But there are some things I can say about Shaya.  "We're the same age," I begin, "She's the mayor's daughter.  A volunteer lifeguard."

         "So she swims well?" Jack plays along, "Better than you?"

         I don't see how it could hurt to play up her abilities.  "Definitely.  To be a lifeguard, you have to be one of the best."

         "Salvador Chavez," Apple reads the second name again, the same way she will every time that this footage is replayed.

         "He looks familiar."

         "Is there footage?" I pipe up, glancing toward the film crew- I'm not sure if this is allowed or not, but we're not airing live, so how much trouble can it get me in?  "I know Salvador.  He's part of my…sort of…fan club?  Back home.  There's footage of him talking to Apple that was taken at the beginning of my Tour.  Can you show that?"

         "We'll look," the tattooed man tells me.

         "He's great," I sigh, simultaneously hating and loving Salvador as he makes the best of this awful situation, chatting with Apple onstage and telling everyone that he's proud to represent our district.  "He'd been talking to me beforehand about possibly volunteering, you know?"

         "I've got to say, kid's pretty brave for even talking about that," Jack allows.  I'm sure that it's considered an unlucky subject to bring up in other districts, just the same as in 4.  Jack makes several other favorable remarks about my tributes before the broadcast shifts to 5.  I think he's doing it for me as much as for them.  (But why?  Because we're friends?  Is it intended to produce a particular response from me?  …Why can't I just accept a good thing as it is?)

         The reapings have gained a certain level of interest for me now that I've met so many of the individuals featured at them.  Like in 5- there's Shy and there's Mac too.  They make a funny pair.  Though they may not be family by any Capitol legal standards, it's obvious to me that Mac is a father to her.  It's nice that some of us (victors) still have family.

         There's a fuss in 6 following the actual name-calling as Teejay passes out while climbing down the stairs.  "I worry about him," I admit.

         "I've heard it's his blood pressure," Jack lies.  I suppose any information about Teejay's drug abuse isn't meant to be out there for public consumption?  In 6 there didn't seem to be anything secret about it.

         "Ohhh," I sigh over the very young tributes in 7.

         "That is unfortunate," is Jack's response to them.  "And I guess there isn't anyone out there in Seven these days quite like you."

         I can't tell him how I thought Haakon might have been.  Last year is over, the last Games are done.  Unless a Capitol citizen instigates the discussion, in public, I am the only safe subject of the Twelfth Games remaining.

         "Kayta's going to have to work hard with that, but I know he's up to any challenge they throw at him.  If the win is his to direct, he's ready to grasp it," Jack goes on analyzing things, "Seven came so close last year- you know that better than anyone, Mags- they are ready for their next victor."

         And in 8 Jack picks up on what looked to me like determination in Pal's face, "Think he's got a plan?"

         "Well, even if the tributes look kind of unimposing, I wouldn't underestimate Eight," I say mildly.  It does look like Pal's thinking something, but I don't want to draw too much attention to him- I worry that by doing so I could ruin his plan.  Maybe he wants his tributes to be underestimated.  But we haven't talked yet.  I really can't tell.  He could have ruined himself with his stronger than usual expression anyway.

         We treat Luna with respect (I'm afraid if I joked about her she might say something back to me I wouldn't be capable of handling), but laugh a bit at Emmy when she has to be prompted about her own identity.  There is less familiar material to work with in 11 and 12 without any victors, but Jack gives a good assessment to the boy in 11- "I think that one can handle himself.  We don't all need mentoring to make it."

         "Harvest," I put his name to memory, "That's a pretty name."

         "Thank you for watching," Jack cheers.  "Hmm…  Thank you for watching!" he tries again.

         It makes me laugh.  I'm not used to being so aware of the "this is going to be edited later" effect.  "Should I say it too?"

         Jack turns his focus away from the camera to me, "Yeah!  Let's say it together."  He looks forward again, "One…two…"

         "Thank you for watching!"

         He grins and gives me a thumbs up.  Mine is a bit more tentative, but I return it all the same.  I hold the pose as long as Jack does.  "…Anything else?"

         "Is…there anything else you'd like to say?" he prompts me, "…Or ask?"

         I can see the bait as clear as day, but I'm going to take it anyway.  "Your t-shirt."  That's got to be it.  What I want to ask and what he wants me to ask.  If there's one thing Jack can do, it's certainly setting himself up for the scenarios that he wants to occur.  He's a born performer, isn't he?

         "We can do that, can't we?" he looks to the film crew, who give him the okay, "Nice.  Let's do it then!  …Actually, I'm kind of disappointed we don't have that initial look you gave me when you got here to share with everyone."

         "…Is that the look you want people to be giving that shirt?"

         "It was so sincere."  His look is sort of gentle now, compared to the manic cheer with which he approached most of the reaping footage.  "I like that about you.  You're so honest."

         I start to feel embarrassed that the camera is capturing all of this.  I can't maintain eye contact with Jack.  "Is there a particular way you want me to ask about it?"

         He shifts, looking away too, but only to relieve the pressure on me, I think.  It's hard to picture anything embarrassing Jack, considering all the things he does without a ripple across his carefully controlled surface.  "Nah, ask however you like.  Whatever feels natural."

         I take a deep breath.  "Okay, I'm ready then."  I pause to give the editors some space to work with (I don't know if they need it or not or how much is enough if so).  "I noticed your shirt right away when I got here.  What's that about?"

         "Thank you for asking," he stands up and removes his unbuttoned outer layer he's wearing to make the details of the green t-shirt visible for all to see.  In the center is the District 1 crest with its elaborate swords and shining castle design (I've never been able to figure out exactly what that means).  In all-caps above the crest: "FIRST ANNUAL," and beneath it: "HUNGER GAMES."  He turns around to show the back to the camera- I haven't seen this part before, and gestures at it, poking his thumb over his shoulder.  There's a crown design and his silhouette.  He's identified by name: "Jack Umber."

         "Flashy," I say.  I am a little bowled over still.  What else can I say?

         "Thank you," Jack sits back down, "It's brand new.  My Games fade further and further into the past, but they still remain fresh in my mind.  Maybe they remain fresh in yours too?" he cocks his head, addressing the viewers, "I had several made up in commemoration of the event and if you're interested, I could definitely put in a request for more.  I have hopes that the sales of such items could go to support our newest District One tributes, but, ultimately, it's all in the hands of our fine fans such as yourself.  Call up Games HQ if you're interested."  He winks at the camera.

         He actually winks.

         "Maybe Mags needs one first," he raises his eyebrows, "What size do you wear?  A small?"

         "Uh," I gasp, not sure whether to laugh or put my hands over my face or what, "Yeah," I confirm.

         "You'll look good in green," Jack says.

         "It…"  My awkwardness has few bounds.  "It matches the color of your eyes."

         "Oh, it does!  Well, what do you know!"

         I do start laughing then, because this is all just so…  I also put my head down on the table.

         "Cut!" someone calls.

         Jack gives me a little applause.  "Thanks for all that.  It was great, Mags."

         "I can't handle this."  The imminent deaths, the commercialization, the black humor, that weirdly touching side of Jack that pokes through and gets to me.

         "Just let it out," he pats my shoulder.

         I wonder if I could get it out better if I laughed or if I cried.  Jack gets up to talk with the film crew.  I don't pay attention to what they're saying.  Everyone leaves me alone on the set until I've pulled myself back together (as much as it's possible for me to do so- it's not perfect).  Even after that I'm sitting alone for a while until Jack comes back to see me.

         "Here," Jack presses a small disc in a plastic case into my hand, "Happy unfortunately belated birthday."

         "Yours is toward the end of the year, huh."  I didn't do anything for Jack's birthday.

         "Around the time you visited District One," he says.  That was it then, he means.  …I think.  I came and met him there and played along with his games.  And for Jack, that would do.

         "I'll make it up to," I offer instead, "I'll remember next time."

         "Yeah," he nods, "You probably won't be as busy."

         There will never be a right time, will there, for the two of us to just be friends.  Not the way I think of being around my friends.  Casually.  But I can't help but think he would like it.  Walking on the beach or lolling about in a skiff or going swimming (can he swim?).  …Is it bad that I can be distracted from the important duties weighing on me at this moment?  Or is it good?

         "See ya soon," Jack waves me off.

         I turn to see Nar is waiting for me with Apple.  Apple's expression is one of her typical ones- charming and charmed.  Nar looks serious.  …and the best I can tell, it's Jack he's eying, not me.  For whatever it's worth, Jack is giving him some kind of look in return- a very different one from the smile he just shared with me.  But no matter how much these things concern me, I tell myself yet again: there are other things that have to come first.

         Nar stays behind at the studio.  Apple heads back to the Training Center with me.  My eyes keep coming back to rest on the disc in my hands.  "Did you know Jack said something about my birthday back then on his show?"

         "I did not."

         "I'm a little embarrassed to watch this."

         "It's up to you," Apple shrugs.  At a moment like this, I find I appreciate her more ambiguous feelings regarding Jack.

         I will put off his recording for now.  The Training Center looms down the street and divides all the things in my mind.  I could be wrong though.  Nar and Jack and the Games are all part and parcel, aren't they?  Things might be more interrelated than I think.

         We go inside.  Sunny Lightfoot is squeezing the hands of a scrawny girl in a brown dress.  The girl is taller than she is.  There's a boy too, of course, whose face looks so green I think he might have been sick on the way over.  Teejay's not there.  "We'll all do our best," Sunny is telling her tribute, "Mags too," she notices me passing by.

         "Why Mags?" the girl asks and looses a laugh that cracks with pain (but it's still a laugh).

         I don't hear anymore as the doors close behind us.  I still haven't quite taken to the elevator.  I sway with the motion, looking down at my feet.  "You know, I read everything Nar sent me really carefully.  …I still don't think I'm going to be a very good mentor though," I admit. 

         "All those concerns are just a sign that you care very much," Apple answers.  At least she has faith in me.

 

         As we return, my "favorite" is bringing things in for dinner.  The Avoxes seem to have their own special service lifts and pathways for taking care of everything with a minimum amount of interaction with the tributes, escorts, and mentors.  Apple and I didn't pass any on the way either up or down, but here are two of them now.

         "There's a familiar activity," I remark at the sight of the dartboard set up in the sitting room (parlor?  I'm not always sure how best to describe these Capitol spaces).  …Of course now there's a picture of last year's shark-mutt stuck to the board with a dart through its eye.

         "Sal's a natural," Aulie informs me with a puff of pride.

         I didn't know.  I'm not surprised Aulie's taken to "Sal" though, either the newly inaugurated nickname or Salvador himself.

         "It wouldn't kill anyone though," Shaya notes, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands.

         "With a little poison it would!" Salvador grins and…jokes?  Has a plan that he probably won't end up with the proper supplies for?

         "You're too optimistic to die," Shaya sighs at him.

         A shadow flits across his face.  "Yeah, I wish I were."

         "Come and eat!" Apple singsongs, inviting us all to dinner.

         My only food advice to my tributes is: "Don't eat anything you know will make you sick."  They'll have time to recover before the arena of course, but they might as well not be uncomfortable tomorrow (the work that Erinne and her team will do has the potential to turn toward the uncomfortable side anyway).

         Shaya asks if mentors know anything about the arena in advance.  They don't.  …Or at least I don't (so I assume the others don't).  She muses that she may be nice-looking but, "I don't think I'm pretty enough that I could use that to convince anyone to kill for me."  She likes the tiny canned sardines and a thick brown bread studded with dried fruit and nuts.

         Salvador asks what weapon I think he should focus on in training and go for in the arena assuming he has the chance.  I look him up and down.  I am far from an expert in this matter (I should probably try and improve my knowledge of this sort because I've gotten myself into a spot where I'm going to be asked this very same question for years and not knowing isn't going to do my tributes any favors).  "…Something that's not too heavy for you," is the best I can do.

         "Shortsword, maybe," Aulie volunteers more helpfully than I can manage.

         "The recap's going to be on in…three minutes!" Apple announces, checking her comm-device.

         "I'm not watching this," I bow out, "There's no way."

         "Because you're in it?" Salvador asks.

         Partially?  "Lots of reasons," I answer.  It may leave a bad impression, but it's my prerogative as the victor in this group to do what I want, right?  "…Make sure and get as good a rest as you can tonight," I tell my tributes, "Getting made over can be strangely, uh, tiring.  But if you really need me for something, don't hesitate, of course, to come bother me.  Just knock first."

         "Well, good night then," Shaya is understandably annoyed by the tack I'm taking, but I just don't think I can handle watching the reapings yet again and this time with whatever dumb commentary I made that they chose to use added in.

         "Good night," I sigh.

         "She's just worked up," I hear Apple apologizing for me as I close my door.

         "I know," Salvador says.  "She's never like that."

         I lie on my bed and don't do anything for what feels like a very long time.  Through the wall I can hear the vague noise of my group laughing.  I hope that laughter includes Shaya and Salvador.  They could use it.  I don't mind if they're laughing at my expense even.  I'd just rather they not do it in front of me.

         I don't watch the recording Jack gave me.  I take a shower and get in bed.  I should've brought a book.  There's not much good here about being alone for long with my thoughts.

         Eventually there's a tapping at my door.

         "Yes?" I ask.

         The door opens a crack, letting in a tall sliver of light.  "I just wondered if you were awake," Salvador responds.

         "Yep," I can't help but smile, although I don't think he can see it.

         "Okay then.  Good night, Mags."

         "Good night, Salvador."

        

         No one else comes by.  I dream about my Games.

 

*****

 

         "Be good for Erinne and her helpers.  They're nice," I lecture.  It makes me feel infinitely old.

         "I liked the way they dressed you," Shaya remembers, "I hope I get to wear something pretty too."

         "I don't care about clothes," Salvador shrugs.

         "I like the dress you're wearing now too," Shaya ignores her counterpart, "Pal Fields made you that, huh?"

         "He's even nicer than Erinne," I admit (Aulie laughs).

         Shaya looks down and runs her hands slowly, sadly, over her Capitol loaner clothes.  "…I think I'll talk to the girl from Eight."

         I never thought about what role I might have in securing them alliances.

         Spring and Irish are as cheerful as ever, which is good for tributes to be around at this point, I think.  "Tell me about your hair," Spring is prompting Shaya as they disappear from my sight.  Irish and Salvador are laughing.

         "I've got this false kelp theme going on this year," Erinne tells me.  "Oh, and I made you some fishing lure hair decorations.  They're really bright-colored.  They're going to look great on TV."

         "Did you see Jack's First Games shirt?"  I'm curious to hear her "expert" opinion.  "What did you think?"

         "Well, first off, I thought he was going to take it off right there on camera and put it on you," she laughs, "But other than that, hmm, just that it was the typical garish bit of publicity that he lives for.  I'm glad that we work for you.  You're more…low key."

         "And yet you're going to put fishing lures in my hair."

         "And yet!" Erinne spreads her hands out to the open air.

 

         I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself and no one tells me.  I wander back to the front and run into Shy and Luna caught up in a heated discussion while Emmy and Beto look on.  Neither of the two watchers offer an explanation to me on their own.  So, Emmy or Beto?  They're close together and I choose not to choose.

         "What's this about?"

         "There is a possibility tributes could be sponsored by Capitol citizens," Beto says skeptically, "And there is a difference of opinion occurring over whether this will be so or not during this particular run of the Games."

         "Ferdinand didn't tell me so," Emmy murmurs.

         "He might not know," Beto tells her in a slower, more careful manner than most of his speech.  "I don't know."

         "Well…" I consider, pausing as I watch Shy step toward Luna in an angry manner and wonder what would happen if they got into a physical fight (would they get in trouble?  would they actually hurt one another?), "It's one thing if it's just us thinking, but we've all heard about it somewhere or other, right?  How much talk about it would they allow to fly around without anything happening do you think?"

         "Difficult to ascertain.  I'm not aware of a comparable precedent."

 

         Kayta shows up and steps between Luna and Shy, clearly the better person than Beto, Emmy, or I because I think we were going to let them go at it.  "It doesn't matter what either of you think or have heard anyway," he sighs, stilling Shy by wrapping his arm around her shoulders, "They're going to do what they want regardless.  And you know those Gamemakers can turn on a dime."

         "She doesn't have to be such a gossipy factory rat about it though," Luna sneers.

         "Watch it, grass-cutter," Shy answers in a tense whisper.  Is this a history of animosity between them specifically or is this a factory district versus field district thing?  (Everyone knows there's a least a bit of both types of work in their own district (well…I think there is?), but they all stereotype basically one way or the other)

         Luna gives her ponytail an annoyed flip and turns and walks away.

         Kayta lets go of Shy and sighs even harder.  "Sponsors or no sponsors, Seven is so screwed."

         "Sorry for your loss," Emmy attempts to comfort him.

         I suppose her words work in their own weird way, because Kayta bursts out laughing.  "In advance, huh?  Wow, Emmy, thank you for that!"

         "You're welcome."

         "Bet', we need you over here," a designer or hairdresser or something I don't know intrudes in our meeting.

         "On my way," Beto agrees, but raises his hand to make a slow, deliberate 'gun to the temples' gesture (since he actually does it, I assume it's for our benefit) before following.

         It isn't long after before Emmy leaves too, to find Ferdinand.

         "So…why do you think they're going to institute the sponsorships?" I ask Shy, "…Or do you not?"

         "I think some people know about it," Shy declares, "Jack and the Twos and maybe Pal."

         Kayta's thin eyes narrow even further as he squints and considers this.  "I have a hard time imagining Pal could know anything that the rest of us don't.  The Twos, sure.  Jack, sure.  Of course, if Jack knew something, don't you think he'd tell Mags…?"

         "I don't know," Shy exclaims, seeming to light up.  She looks at me, "Would he tell Mags?"

         "You know I have no idea," I say.

         Shy gives me a moment, like maybe I'm joking.

         "Really," I insist (suddenly I can see better how an argument involving her might have started).  I agree with them that if any victor know it would be Gerik, Hector, or Jack, but Jack never said that.  …Unless the t-shirts for sale said it for him.  But he didn't say that just to me, assuming it made the broadcast.  They all had an equal opportunity to watch.

         "What is Pal doing that makes you think he knows about sponsorships?"  I mean, we've barely been in the Capitol to observe one another.  Did she hear about something he was up to back in 8?

         "Uh," Shy taps a finger against her cheek, "Talking to people.  Lots of people.  And he's usually kind of shy of Capitol people.  Also, he brought some kind of sewing basket and project with him."

         "Maybe he's making clothes for his tributes," Kayta tries to come up with another rational explanation.

         Shy is unshaken.  "Telling people he made their outfits himself could still be a sponsor ploy."

         We're not going to be able to come to a satisfactory answer to this inquiry based on what little we know now and if Pal is anywhere at the Spa Center, he's not out lingering in the waiting area with us.  Thinking our own thoughts (if there are sponsors, what will I do to attract them?), we retreat to the company we arrived with.

 

         For my part, it's a subdued day, full of waiting and anxious thought.  Erinne lets me page through her sketchbook.  "Draw me something," she suggests.  I comply, but I am a terrible artist and not having any particular idea in mind as I begin doesn't help.

         When Erinne returns from the fittings she points out her favorite part.  "That's a nice fish pattern."

         "Thank you.  I just started making, well, scribbly lines until they put me in mind of something."  Maybe because she's a designer she can see something in it I don't, though I'd lean toward "she's just being nice to me" as the actual reason for her comment.

        

         Spring puts the fishing lure ornaments in my hair after my tributes have been dressed up but before I get to see their finished looks.  It's nice to receive only a minimal amount of fussing of my appearance.  I stay in my own dress, my own shoes, my hair as I fixed it.  Irish suggests some eye shadow and I acquiesce to this small addition.

         "Erinne and everyone have really stepped up the detail level of the costumes this year," Apple informs me, "Compared to the simple blue and white outfit you wore, these ones are considerably more experimental.  Obviously they've been inspired to greater heights by their past success."

         I'm not sure if experimental is exactly my style clothes-wise, but it's not up to me what sorts of outfits my tributes get (though I imagine if I voiced my opinion Erinne would take it into account to some degree- she's not particularly aloof or stuck-up).

         Still, between "experimental" and "kelp" I don't know exactly what to expect and my, "Oh!" of surprise is genuine when I see Shaya and Salvador all kitted out.  Shaya's long hair is half up and half down, fixed with abalone pins.  Salvador's hair is slicked back- err, down.  I'm not sure his hair is quite long enough to say "back" about the direction it's going, but it's smooth now instead of lively.

         Salvador is shirtless and Shaya has on an emerald green bikini top, but they sport basically the same bottom- some kind of wraparound skirt or sarong made out of what looks very much like wet, shiny kelp, but is actually some kind of unusual, plastic-ish fabric.

         "What does that feel like?" I wonder.

         "Go ahead and touch it," Salvador holds part of the fabric out towards me.

         "Oh," I'm impressed, "It's pretty silky!"

         "Your expression makes this whole get-up almost worth it," Shaya shakes her head at me.  Her weird smile gives me the impression that for the moment she's just surrendering to the surreal strangeness around her.  'If I didn't laugh, I would cry,' right?  The Capitol is pretty unlike 4 though.  Some amount of culture shock strikes me as a kind of inevitability.

         "You don't like your outfit?" I ask her.

         "Um," she looks at the style team, "Not 'no offense' I suppose, but as little offense as possible?"  She turns back to me, "I would obviously never wear this for any other reason and it's not something I would consider regular clothing.  …But Irish is amazing with makeup and my hair has probably never looked this good before, which is a such a horrible drag because this is hardly the moment in my life I would've liked to look my best even assuming I'm going to die in the first day of the Games."

         "Has anyone not been killed or whatever because they were too pretty?" Salvador muses aloud.

         "I don't think so," Spring snorts.

         "Everyone back home will still see you looking this good," I remind Shaya, hoping a realistic remark will be better received than some assertion that she won't die that quickly.

         "It doesn't mean much if I never see them again," she answers me.

         I don't like it, but I don't blame her.  I look down and notice that they're both wearing laced up red sandals.  Salvador's are flat and Shaya's raise slightly in the back in a kind of- not a heel exactly, it's called a wedge?  Her ribbon token is tied around her ankle like an anklet.  It looks very pretty, but all the trouble I continue to have making comfortable conversation with her deters me from mentioning it.  I can only hope I won't regret refraining from saying so later.  (I will live with Beanpole's ghost forever- though this doesn't stop me from living or even happiness, it is with extra company in my mind- will it be the same for every tribute I lose as well?)

         "Where will you be while we ride on the chariots?" Salvador wants to know.

         "Umm, I'll get you set up and then there's a special box of seats outside the presidential manor for the victors to watch from."

         "Has anyone ever fallen off their chariot?" Salvador keeps on asking questions even when he's situated on the vehicle in question.

         "You want to know everything," Shaya sighs.

         "Even if Mags doesn't know, I'm sure _someone_ knows this stuff!" he insists.  He's probably right.  The Games are entertainment for those they aren't punishing and many people love trivia (Papa, for instance, loves fishing trivia).

         "I don't think anyone's going to win the Games by knowing trivia, Salvador," Shaya is equally firm in reply.        

         "Oh, don't argue here," Aulie scolds them, "Go out there smiling."

         "Please," Apple adds, clasping her hands across her chest.  Her own smile is more strained than usual.

         "Miss Mags," Nar finds me, Shy already trailing along behind him, "Will you accompany me to your scheduled seating?"

         "Uh, sure.  Good luck," I wish Shaya and Salvador for what it's worth.

         Apple walks alongside me for several yards as I head toward the exit, fretting as though there's something she wants to tell me but isn't sure how to broach the subject.  Should I prompt her?  Before I can, she decides on her own.  "Mags, I hope you let me know if I ever begin to act as if I'm taking you for granted, because I've given a lot of thought about how easy you are to be around today and I think you should know that I like you very much and am much happier to work with you than any other victor."

         "Did Shaya do something really frustrating at the Spa Center?"

         "No one particular thing, but she is one of the most difficult tributes I've worked with since I took this job."

         "I'm sure you'll manage though, Apple," I try to console her in light of her awkward complaint.  Sure, it's selfish, but I still think she's trying to be as professional about the matter as possible.  It's not a problem specifically originating from Apple, but one of the many unpleasant things coming out of the Games in general.  I never found Shaya to be a particularly kind person back home and who would expect her entry into the Games to bring out the best in her?

         "Come on, Mags!  Hurry up!" Shy turns back and holds her hand out to me, "I don't want to miss anything!"

         "Go on," Apple releases me from the unexpected matter of coaching her along with my tributes.

         Nar takes on a heart-poundingly fast drive to the victors box then leaves us alone as he hobnobs with some colleagues from Victor Affairs.  "Sit with meeeee," Shy pleads until I scoot over along the bench close beside her.  She drops her head down onto my shoulder while music plays and we can't see anything related to the tribute parade even on one of the big hanging display screens.

         Behind us Kayta asks Pal if he made the costumes his tributes will be wearing here.  It turns out he did, though he offers no explanation why.

         Hector, sitting in front of me looks back and tells me, "Loved you on the reaping broadcast."

         "I didn't actually watch it," I admit.

         "You edit well then?" Gerik suggests from behind Hector without turning around to face my way.

         I find myself smiling at the back of his head.

         "You're pretty much the same on TV as you are in person," Hector notes, "The way you are translates well.  I feel right at home watching you.  …Though it'd still be nice to see you trip up Jack someday."

         "He kind of plays her, huh?" Shy says.  "Mags, I would never do that to you."

         "You're embarrassing her too," Hector laughs.

         "Oh, don't worry about it," I respond, but my stiffness probably shows.

         "Jack's too busy being on live television to join us," Hector goes on, indicating the small set of stands we're occupying pretty much on the president's lawn.  Beto sits beside Gerik, completing the bottom row (though it would sit at least one more whether it had been Jack or me), though he's reading off a digital tablet and generally ignoring the scene around him.  To Shy's right are Sunny and Teejay, who exhibits his usual blurred out gaze.  On the third and highest row are Kayta, Pal, Luna, and Emmy.  Emmy is fretting about something and Luna has her fingers in her ears to tune it out.  What a bunch we are.

         The music picks up and the tributes from 1 appear onscreen for our "viewing pleasure" ahead of my actually being able to see them (and even with a relatively unobstructed view- a good thing in light of my tiny stature).  Shy lifts her head off my shoulder.

         It's a bit hard to hear over all the noise- the music, the shouting, the clapping- but Shy comments on all of the costumes.  Is it like being on a very peculiar date?

         I pay more attention to the president's words this year than last time, but that doesn't make them any more interesting than they were then.  He's a broken record.  What kind of cause is that meant to serve?  Or he just is, not to any particular purpose.

 

         I meet back up with my tributes, finding them worn out, hair mussed, and makeup smeared.  "Doing nothing has never made me so tired," Salvador confesses wryly, "This must be what it's like to be any part of the government but the president."

         "I just want to eat and go to bed," Shaya holds her head up with one hand, elbow set on top of the table.  I imagine Apple is mentally encouraging her to do just that.

         "No one expects you to do anything else," Aulie assures her.

         Sleep holds more allure than the meal.  Neither of them eats much, leaving us old veterans of the Training Center to carry on alone.  Aulie mixes himself some kind of alcoholic drink, but Apple and I both turn down his offers to share.

         After several more drinks Aulie suggests that perhaps I can bank on my good relationship with Jack to see if either or both of his tributes might be willing to partner up with mine.  I thank him for the suggestion, but there's no way I'm going to ask that.  It would…presume too much?  I'm not sure if mentors are technically allowed to do that anyway.  When I worked with Sparrow, we decided that on our own.  Even Beanpole and I were eventually partners of our own accord, though I'm sure Aulie and Apple would've been shocked if we'd done otherwise.

         Shaya and Salvador might come together if circumstances keep them around long enough, but I doubt they'll start the Games together.  They don't have compatible personalities.  And while sticking together might provide more of a boost for Shaya, I think, than it would for Salvador, it wouldn't be worth that much.  If it's help they're looking for, there's probably better gathered up here for either of them.

         I take a shower and lie in bed.  The TV recording Jack gave me lies unwatched on the desk.  I think about watching it.

         I go to sleep instead.

 

         I am slow to rise.  Aulie is answering Salvador's ongoing stream of questions over breakfast while Apple and Shaya eat sitting on the couch instead.  I think Apple is just over by her to be polite (sorry, Apple, I suppose that should've been me).

 

         "Do you have any better advice than Aulie?" Shaya quizzes me as Apple and I ride with them down to the basement level training floor.

         "What was his advice?"

         "Try lots of things and try to make friends."

         I resist the urge to say "Worked for me!" and leave them to figure it out for themselves.  "Okay, I don't intend to make any mean assumptions about either of you, so don't take this the wrong way, but Shaya, since you have less, uh, firsthand living off the land sort of experience, make sure and look at survival stuff like plants that will supplement your lifeguard training.  You don't neglect that either, Salvador, but-"

         "I know what I want to do…if I can," he says, saving me the need to come up with a study strategy for him too.  He's more likely to have gotten further advice from Aulie than Shaya or at least to have taken it seriously.  And if it's the way he wants to go, he shares my tendency to easily make friends.

         "Have fun," Apple tells them as they leave.

         "I am going to have to get a lot smarter if I'm going to do this for the rest of my life," I sigh.

         "You can't win them all, dear," is Apple's lackluster consolation.  I don't think she's as invested in this anymore as she was last year or when we began.  I probably need to do something about that.  Apple did lots of things that helped me out…in her own way.  I need my tributes to have every advantage available to them.  You may finish the Games on your own, but you don't have to start them that way.  "What will you do now?" she asks me.

         "Can I go outside?" I inquire, "Leave the Training Center?"

         "I'm not sure you should do that on your own," she frowns, a bit pained, "You might get lost and people might bother you.  After all, it's not like you know much of the Capitol."

         "No, not far," I insist, "I just thought I might take a walk around the building.  …Is there somewhere the other victors go during this time?"

         "Hmm…I think some of them stay on their assigned floors and some of them with more connections go into the city.  I really can't say.  Before we had you, I almost never had an occasion to talk to them and it's rare that most of them will address an escort they have no association with."

         "I see."

         "But you are allowed to go out.  I imagine if you stay within sight of the Center there would be no difficulty.  There will be security around the building who won't let anyone unauthorized come and badger you as well."

         "I guess I'll go walk then."  And see what there is to see, right?

         "Have a nice time.  You come back and meet with Aulus and me for lunch, all right?  Or let us know if you make other plans.  I don't want to be worrying about you."

         I don't hesitate to agree.  I plan on continuing to make my part of this whole process run as smoothly as possible.  We both get into the elevator, but I get off in the front area of the main floor (the tributes from 1 are also stationed on this level, but there's no sign of them here in the main reception area) and Apple carries on higher for now at least.

         I get some looks from the front desk as I go, but no one stops me.

         When I come out of the Training Center, leaving my tributes thoroughly occupied with their ad hoc preparation, I find Jack crouched down looking into the planter.  I watch him for a few seconds to see if I can figure out what he's up to on my own.  Did he drop something in there?  Is an unusual bird or bug moving around between the plants (although I doubt the Capitol has any insects in the first place, and, come to think of it, I've never seen a wild bird here)?

         As I can't determine his purpose and he isn't moving, I ask him about it.  "What's so interesting in there, Jack?"

         "Oh, Mags!  Hey!"  There's nothing surprising about the two of us running into one another here, but he seems pleased by it from the look on his face.  It's not just that he's smiling- Jack smiles most of the time- but they _way_ he smiles.  Again, it's not his TV grin.  I like to think that there's something special between Jack and I, but it's hard to say for sure if I'm not just being deluded about his ordinary sort of performance.  We spend far more time apart than together.  We don't know anything about one another's lives back home that the rest of Panem hasn't seen on air aside from a few shared remarks here and there.

         "It's this clover," he straightens up to stand a whole head taller than me and waves a congenial hand toward the plants.

         I squint at the clover, but still don't notice anything out of the ordinary.

         "It's all four-leaf clover," Jack explains, but, unfortunately, I'm still too stupid to get it.

         "Uh," I give him a sheepish grin, "I…I don't understand the significance of that."

         "Huh.  Really?" Jack gives me a funny smile that crinkles up his face, "I guess it's different in Four then."

         This makes me curious.  "So, in One, there's something different about the clover?  There's some kind of meaning to it?"

         Jack sits down on the edge of the planter, casually, like he's sitting on a fence in a field somewhere or on the side of a boat.  I wonder if Jack can swim.  I can imagine it.  I can see him cutting through the water like a marlin.  I stop imagining when he begins to speak (it barely takes a second to dream, doesn't it?).  "In One, most clover has three leaves.  A four-leafed clover is rare.  Finding one is considered lucky."  He pauses.  "You really don't know that in Four?  Ten knows it."

         "There's a lot more grass in Ten than there is in Four," I suggest.  I saw it on my Victory Tour.  It was the first time I realized an abundance of plant life could look like the sea.

         "Sorry, sorry," Jack dismisses it, running a hand through the clover, "I  didn't meant to sound like a jerk."

         "No," I reassure him, "I didn't think you were being a jerk at all.  It's just…the other districts are more different than we realize sometimes.  …Most of the people who saw the other districts…during the Dark Days…well, they're dead."  I start laughing then, nervous over the weird conversation we've managed to have.

         Jack looks me in the eye, serious and intent.  I wonder what he's thinking, looking at me like that.

         "I was thinking that a lucky clover would make a good token.  See, my girl this year didn't bring any token with her.  She doesn't have any family and she was too distraught to think of asking anyone to get something of hers for her.  I told her I'd take care of it.  …Thing is, if all the clover in the Capitol has four leaves, what's the significance of it?  What's lucky about something you can just make a million of whenever you feel like it?"

         "She'd probably appreciated how much thought you put into this for her," I offer.  If I were in that tribute's place, I know I would.  My own tributes have both brought tokens of their own.  Shaya's is a tiny piece of teal ribbon, long enough to tie into her hair, but not enough to choke or strangle anyone with.  It's a fragment carefully clipped by her mother off of one Shaya always liked to wear back home.  Salvador's is a black pearl his mother dove for.

         "You're right," Jack agrees with me, "But I want to do better than that.    I want to give her a token with as much meaning in it and good feelings in it as I can muster.  I've got to give her as much support as I can to make up for what she was lacking."

         "You're a really good mentor."

         "I don't know about that," he shrugs and looks back into the clover, "I mean this in the gentlest way possible, but I don't exactly have tons of stiff competition in that category.  …Everyone does the best they can."

         I think about Emmy Pollack's glassy stare.  You never know…maybe she's a really good mentor despite her own eccentricities.  Maybe.  "Well, you set the bar, Jack," I settle upon and crouch down beside him to examine the clover.

         He's right.  It seems like every one has four leaves.  I have an idea.  "Let's try and find a three-leaf clover then.  If being rare is what makes it lucky, in a situation like this, wouldn't the three-leaf clover become the lucky one?"

         Normal is beautiful compared to the manufactured perfection of the Capitol.  Like Jack (what an embarrassing thought that is, I chide myself as soon as I think it).  Normal could be lucky too, right?

         "Heeeey, there you go, Mags!" Jack leans closer to search carefully in hope that a three-leaf clover might somehow have mutated somehow or snuck itself into the pristine four-leafs.  "That's a great idea!"

         We're still diligently searching for a three-leaf clover one clump at a time when Emmy and Ferdinand, the hardworking District 10 escort, come out of the Training Center.  "Jack and Mags are hobbyist gardeners in the Capitol?  How interesting," Emmy remarks to the flashy-looking escort with long hair waxed up to form the shape of a bull's horns over his head.

         "I think they're looking for something, Miss Pollack," the escort corrects her.

         He's right, just not in the way he imagines.  Does he like Emmy, I wonder, or does he just put up with her and her oddness?  I hope for both their sakes that he genuinely likes her.

         He allows Emmy a few minutes to gawk at us before ushering her onward.

         Even though we're barely talking, it's nice to work side by side with Jack.  We're running out of ground though.  The Capitol may have managed to be too thorough in this matter.  No three-leaf clover yet.  I feel a little guilty that I may have wasted Jack's time when he could have been searching out a token for his tribute elsewhere or attending to whatever other business takes up his time in the Capitol.

         Then he hastily reaches past me and plucks a single stem.  "Mags!" he holds the clover out to me like it's some precious and exotic flower, "Look!"

         A three-leaf clover, right here in the Capitol.  "It's wonderful," I sigh, "I'm so happy you found it!"

         "And I'm happy you thought of it."

         We stand up and brush the dirt off our hands.  Jack holds the tiny snippet of plant carefully between two fingers.  It seems so small in his embrace.  "I hope it helps your girl," I say.  "…I still want one of mine to win though."

         "They've got you," Jack promises, "They'll do okay.

         "…I better take this inside and put it somewhere safe," he adds, leans down and hugs me, then dashes off with another of his typically cheerful smiles on his face.

         I feel…really warm and happy.  I sort of stupidly watch Jack as he goes.  His outer blue and purple plaid shirt billows out behind him, like a sail filling with wind.

         I like him.

         Then the guilt comes sweeping in.  What a time and place to be happy.


	8. Part II, Chapter III

         Aside from my brief moment of purpose while helping Jack in the morning, I am basically useless that day.

         Shy shows me where I can go to secretly watch the tributes train (unlike the Gamemakers, our place isn't visible to them, but set behind a one-way pane of glass) and I take advantage of it for a while, but maybe "advantage" isn't the right word to use here, because I'm not sure my watching Shaya jump rope doubled up style with the District 8 girl (and they manage to keep going for what I'd consider a pretty impressive amount of time) is going to help anyone.  That's who Shaya said she'd talk to though.  Will they be allies?

         Salvador seems to be leading a group of the smaller boys in an impromptu dart-throwing competition that he seems to be winning based on what Aulie taught him the other day and the fact that most of his competition is too weak to get as many of their throws both far and enough and powerful enough to stick into the dartboard.  I can't say this is really a promising scenario either.  I don't relish the idea of being pleased by weak competitors.  It's not like I want to watch Shaya or Salvador kill anyone any more than I want to see them be killed.

         And I was a weak tribute.  Emmy and Pal and Shy and Beto and Sunny all began ranked as physically weak tributes.  It doesn't do to underestimate anybody.  There's no knowing what the arena may hold.

         Maybe they visited earlier and then left (like when I passed by Emmy outside earlier?), but I'm not impressed with the turnout of other victors watching this stuff either.  That might mean that it has little to no bearing on how the Games play out (or…no one has realized the potential of watching much of this?  hard to say).  While Shy is there I think she spends more time chatting with me than observing her tributes.  Teejay is present as well, but he's asleep, snoring softly with his head pillowed on his arm.  Beto is the only one giving the training what looks like his full attention.  He has some high-tech-looking listening pieces in his ears.  For something recreational?  Or is he somehow listening in to the training?  I don't know.  There's that pattern again.  How I know nothing about anything.

         Salvador gets his foot caught in a rope someone dropped a little ways from the knot-tying station and falls to his knees.  Get that out of your system now, I think at him.  All the little mishaps that don't mean much- nothing, maybe- here.  That could be death in the arena.

         Shaya and the 8 girl split apart to other activities.  The 8 girl is worn out and sits down to look at sample traps and snares.  The boy from her district comes to join her.  He says something and they laugh.

         I put my feet up on the seat and wrap my arms around my knees and go back to eying my own tributes.

         It felt wrong this morning to be happy and it feels wrong all over again as I get bored.  I am a terrible mentor.  Although we didn't connect well back in District 3, Beto seemed a bit more reachable at the Spa Center yesterday so I decide to address him and see what happens.  "How's it going with your project back home?  Being, um-" what was that name? "Doctor, um-"

         He understands.  I should've known that much.  "Dr. Frankenstein.  It's proceeding poorly.  However, thank you for asking."

         "You're welcome."

         He doesn't say anything else.  As that's better than before, I don't push my luck.

         It would be nice if someone would stay longer who would talk with me, but that's asking for too much.  What do the others do, I wonder?  What are they thinking?  What are they planning?  What are victors meant to do in this midst of this limbo?  I am a mess of mixed up thinking.

         I think about Jack and his smile and rub my hands over my face.

         "The medics have some strong stuff for headaches if you need it," Beto responds to my gesture with a kind of sympathy.

         "Thanks.  I think I'll manage."  I don't feel right telling him the real details.  It would…kind of embarrassing?  Isn't public embarrassment a big enough component of my life now as it is?

         Beto adjusts his glasses.  He shares a tight-lipped smile with me and goes back to his watching and listening.

         I manage to last like this long enough that Apple comes to find me.  "How about lunch?" she asks.

         I invite Beto along.  It seems only polite, but he turns me down.  I can't say I'm not a bit relieved.  I don't think Apple and Beto would be make the best combination for lunch companionship.

 

         The training days seem to go infinitely more slowly than they did when I was training.  On the second day, Pal watches the tributes for a while along with me, hand-stitching purple and gold sequins onto some kind of small, purple cape the entire time.  "Umm," he speaks up, "I don't want to set anyone up for any misconceptions, so I thought maybe I should tell you that as much as Silk- that's my girl- likes your Shaya, the way I'm advising her is to go it alone."

         "O-oh.  That's fine," I answer, "I don't think Shaya had any expectations of her.  I think Shaya will be going all out for herself as well anyway."

         "I," Pal looks down and I lean over, prying, and see that his face is flushed with embarrassment, "I know she's tiny and could benefit from an ally or allies, but I'm afraid that for those very same reasons she'd end up turned on before the end…  I guess what I mean is," he laughs nervously, "I don't want her to be you, but without the luck."

         It's uncomfortable, but I get it.  "N-no, it's okay.  I understand.  I, uh, good luck."

         "Same to yours."  His dark eyes are red-rimmed and underneath those edges are dark circles.

         "…It's kind of hard to get a good night's sleep like this, huh?" I say, aiming for sympathy in my tone, because I don't think I look quite like that, but I've felt plenty troubled myself.  This is only a step up or so from worrying about going into the Games yourself.

         "That's right.  And I've had my hands full with commissions."

         "You're sewing for people?"  It hadn't occurred to me to consider whether or not he did this sort of thing.  Of course, with sewing as his talent (and there were plenty who thought it was kind of boring that Pal would chose a talent that he would've been able to pursue, albeit in a more constrained manner, anyway in his district) and the things he made on display, maybe that makes sense.  I love the dress he made me after all.

         "I don't usually take very many- Victor Affairs does allow me to turn down clients aside from a few of the ultra-elite- and especially not at Games time, but…" he shrugs, never pausing his work as he talks.

         "Why'd you change then?"  I get the feeling he expected me to be able to read the reason out of his words, but I don't follow.

         "It occurred to me that there might be worthwhile tradeoff for selling more of myself- and Eight, in a way- to the Capitol."  He sounds amused by the idea, but also sad.  He's regretful already of what it is he's doing.  Of what he's done.

         I feel a twinge of solidarity with his pain.  "Pal," I press the subject, "Don't force yourself.  If it hurts you that much it might not be worth it."

         "Thanks so much for caring," he says at barely above a whisper, "I guess," his voice raises gradually back toward a normal volume, "I'm of two minds of it.  You know what they say?" he paused, reconsidering whether of not his remark was going to be too district-specific, "Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease?  …But then again, if there's a potential cure, right?"

         He's as tangled up in the net of 'what's a mentor to do?' as I am, I think.  At least for someone as kind as Pal, the years haven't lessened this burden.  "Then I hope you make the right decision for you."

         "Thanks.  And, um, what's on your mind?"  He forces a smile.  "There's a duel going on within you two, or am I wrong?"

         Even in the midst of his own agonies (and whatever situation with his tributes that helps fuel them), he's observant enough to see that I'm also all torn up.  It could just be that Pal knows every mentor is going through some variation on this during this time when we're supposed to be helpful and are only reminded of how helpless we are, but I think it's more than that.  That he understands something of what's troubling me personally.  We're _simpatico_.  Pal saw me as a friend from early on and I don't feel wrong responding in kind.  "You're right," I admit.

         "If you want to talk about it, I can listen.  I don't mind."

         Do I want to say or not?  I know Pal will be understanding, but I'm not sure I want to acknowledge the other bit of emotional turbulence stirring me up along with the  hurricane of nerves and unhappiness the Games bring.  I skirt around it honestly.  "I'm not sure I want to talk about it.  The thing other than the Games, that is.  It's bad to be distracted now, isn't it?"

         "I guess the thing about being distracted is, it can just happen?" he scratches his head.  He doesn't seem too sure of his own assessment.  "I mean, you weren't trying to do it on purpose."

         "No."  That part I'm sure of.

         "We, uh," his smile wobbles, but the more crooked it grows, the more sincerity I feel from it, "As bad as this gets, it can only go on uninterrupted so long.  When these Games are over, you and I can still talk about it."

         "Thanks, Pal."  Maybe by then I'll have a better handle on this.  On balancing my duties with my personal feelings.  On…well, what might just be a stupid crush.  Maybe I will be back in control of my silly feelings before then.

         "You're welcome," he throws himself into his work with redoubled effort.

         Down in the training room, Shaya slips as she tries to climb the mock rock wall.  Pal's boy snaps his hand with the string of a bow, then drops the bow and clutches his hand in pain.  Salvador is struggling to wriggle from a hold being demonstrated by a training.   Pal's girl is tying her shoelaces.  I couldn't have looked like anymore of a winner during my training days, but none of their prospects strike me as especially good.  How can this end, for me or Pal or any of them, without an excess of pain?

        

         I keep hoping, as I watch and wander the Training Center, and manage nothing of any importance, that I will think of something.  That's what Shaya and Salvador are hoping for after all.  Something to help them.  Or at least to give them confidence.

         I think Aulie was a better mentor than I am.  I think I am here to be gawked at and show the people of my district how useless a victor is in the long run more than anything else.  Of course, unless Shaya or Salvador wins, no one but them is going to be aware of the full extent of my inabilities.

         I ask my tributes if they've come up with any ideas about how they plan to tackle the arena.  "Stay the hell away from anyone traveling with a group," Salvador immediately volunteers.

         "Get away from your mom for, what, three days and here comes the language?" Shaya rolls her eyes.

         "Also, stay away from the Twos because I think either of them could snap me like a twig."

         This Shaya can agree to.  "Mica's okay.  I mean, she's really strong, but she's just some unlucky person like the two of us.  The guy's weird.  A showoff or something.  I mean, he's a weirder volunteer than you, Mags."

         I can't say exactly what she means by that, but I will try and take it in the best way possible.  "Well, if you think he's weird, trust your instincts there."  Ada, from 3, comes to mind out of my Games, though I hadn't guessed at any weirdness from her before actually running into her in the arena.  I tend to think she was basically a normal girl who was unhinged by the situation.  She didn't get the chance to pull herself back together again.

         "There are some kids I kind of like," Salvador continues, "But most of them are more likely to be a liability than anything else, I think.  …And, even if they're not, well, after your Games, it's hard to think of picking an ally.  That girl from Six…we really thought she'd got you- I mean, even when you finished her, you were all over the place and a lot of us figured you'd run into someone else while you were in that rage and they'd do it."

         "The district collectively blew a lot of its good luck in crossing its fingers for you," Shaya adds a bit wryly, "And that did include me."

         "Luck isn't something you just run out of, you know," Aulie speaks up.

         "Well, when you die!" Shaya replies.

         She has a point.  There's nothing to say to that.  Not that I can think of at least.  "Well," I move obliquely to another, related, subject, "Even if you want allies, which I will leave entirely up to you, you'll have to be able to do something on your own.  …Something to show the Gamemakers."  And, it's understood, if you want to win.  No one, however reliant they may have been on the actions of another tribute (either chosen ally or inadvertent helper- there have been many more of those), can win without some offensive action of their own.  A victor must kill at least one person.

         I am never sure how many they count for me.  I may never be able to ask.

         But burned into my memory- from one for Sunny (the rare -singular-  victor handed her spot without a final two showdown when the the last two also-rans finished one another while she was sleeping in a rotted tree trunk and Mr. Bronze had to yell at her: "Victor Sunny Lightfoot, wake up!") to five for Jack (and Gerik, sharing the tie)- the official totals remain, indicating the variety of acceptable head counts (and manners of killing…).

         "What did you do for your score?" Shaya runs her fingers through her hair.

         "I made some hooks and…" it sounds so small and pathetic when I say it out loud, "…Used them to fish for some items…"

         "Oh."  My tacky answer actually seems to cheer her.  "So you can still get a workable score from something as small as that."

         "Did you ever find out if there's some kind of curve worked into the scoring?" I quiz Aulie.

         "Not officially, but I talked around and got a junior Gamemaker to admit that they always want to award at least one ten these days to pique the viewers' interest since less people watched the year the second year, when the highest score they gave was a seven."

         Shaya blinks, taking this in with an ounce of surprise, "Huh.  …And so that's what you're useful for."

         "He does know a lot of people," Apple remarks.

         "They're not going to give out an undeserved eleven or twelve though, and they've only obligated themselves to a single ten for viewership purposes, so you'd better watch out for that," he presses the point because it's hardly going to do Shaya any favors to start underestimating her competition (and, understandably, he doesn't appreciate that she seems to lean toward treating him like a useless tagalong of sorts or a joke).

         "Sunny Lightfoot scored a one," I tell my tributes, "But because she did, no one with any amount of strategy on their mind is going to leave a one-scorer for last again just because they think that person will be easy to finish off.  …I mean, I'm sure there's some way for a one to win again, but don't pull any punches.  You want the best score you can get."

         "Yes, Mags," Salvador vows earnestly.

         Shaya rolls her eyes at him, but nods obediently to me.

 

 

         Salvador wakes me up that night at some interchangeably pitch-black and groggy hour.  His cheeks shine in what little ambient light remains to keep me from tripping over something and falling on my face if I have to go walk to the bathroom in the dark.  He's been crying.  "Can I, um," he starts, "I mean," he backtracks, "I know this is kind of weird and it's okay if you say no, but, can I sleep in your room, Mags?"

         "Salvador," I hop up, hurried toward wakefulness by his obvious distress, "Of course you can!"

         I throw my arms around him and he drops his head down, burying his eyes on my shoulder in the sleeve of my nightgown.

         We don't say much to one another, but I get him back to sleep in my bed.

         I doze off eventually in a chair.

         I despair that I care so much and yet I'm still bound to fail him (and even if I don't, then there's Shaya).

 

         In the morning, Salvador isn't much the worse for the wear visibly for his sleep disturbances.  I cannot say the same for myself.  "You look tired," is the endless refrain, from (in order) Apple, Shaya, Aulie, Sunny, and finally Pal.

         "You _still_ look tired," I tell him.

         "I know," he says.  He invites me up to the eighth floor since we can't watch our tributes as they go before the Gamemakers.  A red-haired, neatly bearded Avox makes us some fancy shakes of ground-up fruit which we share while Pal keeps on sewing.

         "Sit with us a little, Brendan," Pal invites the Avox.

         Brendan accepts the offer, though he doesn't look entirely comfortable.  I would posit that he's not really supposed to sit down and relax with us, but he's never gotten in trouble for it before, so…

         Pal snips off the end of a thread, puts his scissors down, and makes a series of hand gestures to Brendan, which provoke a funny, repetitive sound from the bearded man.  It's a laugh.  He verbalizes one small noise, but his real response to Pal's unspoken comment in made through his hands.

         "Brendan's from Five," Pal informs me.  "We get on pretty good, huh?" he asks for confirmation from the man in question.

         Brendan smiles; nods.

         "That's how Avoxes communicate," I realize stupidly, "Other than writing."

         "Well, anyone can communicate this way if they like," Pal shrugs, "Though it's not particularly convenient when you're one some tight sewing deadlines like I am," he picks up his tools and runs a new piece of thread through the eye of the needle.  "I'm not very good, but there are older people in town who are deaf from working around some of the larger machinery for so many years."

         "Do you know most of the other Avoxes who work at the Center?" I ask Brendan.

         "Mostly, yes," Pal interprets his gesture.

         "What about the pretty woman who works with us with the long blond hair?"

         He knows her.  I can understand that much.

         "From One," Pal explains what Brendan indicates.  "Her name is…"

         The phone on the wall rings and interrupts us.  Pal hurries to pick it up, dropping  his pin cushion and several other small sewing supplies onto the floor.  "Hello?  Oh, yes.  She's here.  I'll tell her.  Thank you, Apple."

         At that point I know what it's about before Pal even says it, but I hold my tongue as he delivers the expected information.  "Your girl's turn is up before the Gamemakers.  Miss Apple thought you'd want to know so you can come down with her to meet each of them afterward."

         "Oh.  Okay.  Well."  I get up.  "Thanks for spending time with me, Pal.  You too, Brendan."

         "It's no hardship.  I appreciate the company."

         I leave the warmness of Pal's friendship to find Apple waiting for me.  It's not as if there aren't good feelings between us too, but I'm noticing the various gradations in my relationships more strongly lately.  This isn't to say my relationship with Pal is better or more important than my relationship with Apple or Aulie, but it is different.  It's the same when comparing my relationship with Jack or Shy to what I have with 'Lito or Faline.

         It's all meaningful companionship, but…

         "Hey," I greet Shaya as she's ushered out of scoring, "How're you feeling about that?"

         "Okay," she murmurs.

         "I had the same answer," I reflect.

         "Okay sounds better now."  I take Apple and Shaya back up to the fourth floor, then return with Aulie for Salvador, who is flushed with embarrassment from the moment we meet him.

         "What happened, Sal?" Aulie asks sympathetically, holding his hands out, one of which Salvador hesitantly reaches out to grasp (his hand looks about half the size of Aulie's).

         "I screwed that up, so totally and completely," he sighs.  "Also," he looks back over his shoulder and I turn my gaze to try and figure out what it is he's looking at, "I managed to rip my pants.  …which is part of it."

         "Oh, don't worry about that part," Aulie says without a hint of anything that could be construed as sarcasm or malice, "Around here, if anyone sees you they're more likely to think you're trying to start some unique new fashion trend than anything else.  …And woe betide anyone- even Shaya- who tries to give you a hard time while you're with me!  I look out one hundred percent for all my students."

         Salvador looks up into Aulie's kohl-lined eyes and at that moment, Aulie is the only other person in his world.  So much for me, the mentor.  It's obvious who matters more in the scheme of things for Salvador- at least in this moment.  I shouldn't be jealous.  In a way, this is some of the pressure off of me.  That's what Aulie's continuing to assist our district in the Games is meant to be.  I _am_ happy that they like each other this much.

         "When I think back and try to remember my dad," Salvador tells him, and I begin to feel that I am intruding on much too private a moment between the two of them, "Now, see, he died in the war, so I don't remember too much about him.  Well, I like to imagine that he's someone kind of like you, Aulie."

         "Oh," Aulie replies.  I'm not sure what one says in a situation like that either (I don't imagine I ever will be though).  "Thank you, Salvador."

         "Not as pretty as you though," Salvador laughs, "There are pictures of him so I know that he had the most humongous black beard!  People always say he looked like a bear!"

         "That sounds like a pretty exciting look in and of itself," Aulie responds.  "Come on, let's go back up and get you changed."

         "That's right," Salvador's mind comes back fully to the present.  "I tried to do a whole bunch of things and I think I messed up all of them, Mags."

         "Better to make the mistakes here than there," I suggest.  It's the best I can come up with off the top of my head.

         We go back up and Salvador changes clothes.  No one heckles him.  I don't think Apple even notices his clothing issue.

         We all sit around in front of the television together and watch a program about the vineyards of District 1.  "Oh!" I'm sort of pleasantly surprised, "Sophie Varen!"

         "You went around with her on your Tour," Salvador remembers.

         "She's so pretty," Shaya sighs.

         "She was really nice," I add.

         We eat dinner in front of the TV and then the scores are aired.  Shaya and Salvador receive the same score.  4.  "Okay is as okay does," Shaya dubs it.

         There are, however, two 10s given to the girl from One and the boy from Two.  Two 10s imply that there was no pity or otherwise curved scoring.

         "May I sleep in your room again tonight?" Salvador whispers to me.

         "Sleep in yours, but I'll stay up with you," Aulie butts in.

         "O-okay."

 

 

         To prepare for the interviews, I decide to have my tributes watch some tapes of them and talk about them.  "Because I based a lot of my performance off the performance of a previous victor," I explain.

         "Jack Umber," Shaya says.

         "Err, yes," I confirm it, despite not really wanting to say it right out again (I'm sure I've said it publicly somewhere before).

         "It doesn't really change things what we say, does it?" Shaya wonders, "I mean, maybe it changes our state of mind or that of the other tributes, but it doesn't do anything for the people watching in the Capitol.  So I should just try not to be nervous, right?"

         "Does that mean I can just copy you?" Salvador catches onto a similar current of thought.

         "There's…no reason you can't, I suppose, but I think it's better to do something that feels sort of 'you.'"

         "…and she really is as corny as that guy all on her own, Salvador," Shaya tells her counterpart, "You should be glad that you're not as Capitol-loving a goofball as all that."

         "I kind of admire Mags, you know, Shaya," he speaks up to defend me, "That's why I went to listen to her stories and learn basket weaving and stuff from her.  Just because she smiles and laughs a lot doesn't make her any less heroic, okay?"

         "Fine," she snips back at him, "You be like your hero then.  But don't think I'm going to be your Jean Paul.  I'll handle the arena, the interview- everything- my way and you can handle it yours."  She takes a deep breath, "So, is there anything else you'd like to tell me, Mags?  Because if that's it, I'd rather think about these things alone."

         That…is pretty much it.  "That's it until Erinne and her team get her."

         "Thank you," she maintains at least that level of courtesy as she walks away to her room.

         "…I'm still going to try and take it a little like you," Salvador tells me, undaunted.

         "Let's practice interviews together!" Aulie throws himself back into the situation.  He gets Apple in on it too.  They take turns speaking into a hairbrush, pretending it's one of those big stage microphones that no program really needs these days, but are sometimes used for show.  They don't actually use one for the tribute interviews, but Aulie insists that it makes things more fun.  Aulie and Apple take turns playing the part of Jeff Zimmer with a bit of friendly bickering about which of them is better at it.

         Jack doesn't interview tributes, but I'm coaxed into doing my impression of him, which is dubbed superior to either of my allies' versions of Mr. Zimmer.  I think it speaks, in part, to how Jack can be something of a parody of himself at times.

         "The thumbs up really sells that," Apple sighs, shaking her head, finding my performance roughly equal parts charming and insufferable.  It's not me, it's Jack.  I sort of appreciate how her stance on him never really changes.

 

         Shaya seems happy to see the style team when they arrive.  I'm glad she'll respond positively to someone.  There are fancy see-through high heeled sandals with a pattern like silver nets dotted with tiny orange fish that don't hide her toenails, so Spring paints them with tiny seastars in various shades of orange and gold.

         There's a sort of more daring suit for Salvador than Beanpole sported last year and Shaya's dress is more revealing than mine was (of course, it does suit her- and Shaya has a bit more to fill out such a garment attractively than I would).

         Shaya even speaks up at one point near the end to give the stylists a tip regarding Salvador's hair- which they take and to good effect.

         I am decidedly the least stylish one as we head off to the interview site.  Still, I must not be a complete wash-up.  "I like the way you roll up the ends of your pants," Irish says.

         "Oh," I look down.  They're only rolled up a little right now, above my ankles.  Often at home I keep them up higher.  "It's, um, usually because I don't want the edges to get wet," I admit.  Style never entered into it.

         "It's a working person's fashion then!" Irish hits her fist into her palm, "Oh, that's good!  I think fashion should be for everyone, you know?"

         I offer a vague agreement since I don't really understand.

         When we arrive our group splits apart.  Erinne, Irish, and Spring have their own seats in a particular section, maybe with other equivalent people.  The rest of us head to the back, sign the tributes in, and get them situated in their proper seats, and listen to a production assistant go over the drill of how things will proceed one more time.  "Good luck," I wish my tributes before leaving it in their hands.  I see Pal lingering over his tributes and having to be urged out by a member of the production staff.

 

         I sit in the audience during the interviews, sandwiched between Apple and Aulie, with all the other victors and coaches.  There's nothing I can do here aside from watch Shaya and Salvador do what they've chosen to do.  I look over past my entourage for a glimpse at how Beto, to my right, and Shy, to my left, are waiting until we go live.  Shy is casually smiling toward her tributes, hoping to put them at ease, I suppose.  Beto is drawing a diagram on a notepad.  I have no idea whether it has anything to do with the Games or not and with Beto it's hard to guess.

         The last late arrivals to the audience are seated.  I think about how I saw Jack trip on a wire here last time.  If there are any equivalent missteps, they don't occur in my presence.  There's a countdown.  With the playing of the anthem, we go live.

         Mr. Zimmer is as energetic as ever and the tributes are familiar in their variety.  The 1s seem similar to last year's in that they both run confident.  I wonder what it is they tell them (Jack tells them?) to make them act like that.  When I think back, I can't recall an obviously upset 1 for a long time.  In Shy's year, I think.  Yes, I think so.  The girl from 1 was a crier.  Of course, the only one I paid much attention to was Aoko.  Looking back on it, I know now how brave she was.  You can't understand completely until you've been through it yourself.  She only cried a little and she wasn't so paralyzed by fear that she couldn't do or say anything.  She told Mr. Zimmer about her brothers.  How the best thing she had eaten in the Capitol was a slice of apple pie.

         Suddenly I wonder if Apple remembers Aoko.  She was already our escort then.  Was Aulie already coaching?  The coaches don't receive much press if they're not attached to victors.

         The girl from 2 is gawky, but tough-looking.  The things she says make me think Hector and Gerik would get along well with her if she came back home with them.  Then the boy from 2, the volunteer, is very well-spoken.  You never can know, the way things fall out considering luck and all, but I think he's a serious contender.  If the 2s work together (and it seems none are likelier to work together than 2s), they'll be a formidable team.

         The 3s don't impress physically, but both of their discussions with Mr. Zimmer verge onto topics I can't say I understand very well, so they register on me as smart.  Maybe not specially smart for 3s, but they clearly have a very different education from the majority of us (I wonder if anyone else compares and my best guess must be 5 based on the inside of the plant that I saw there).  I look over at Beto to gauge his reaction to his tributes, but I suppose it can't be all that interesting, since none of the large screens are broadcasting it like they have for Jack's big smile or the proud-looking Hector and Gerik.

         Beto doesn't have the most expressive of faces.  He watches the girl, but barely spares a glance for the boy.  He was focused on Ada last year over Petey.  Does he have some kind of preference for female tributes?  It's strange to imagine Beto being girl-crazy (though he's not necessarily too old for these girls) even without the Games context framing this, but there is the matter of Dasha almost-Merritt whose death seems to have marred his victory in at least some circles back in 3.

          "Shaya Current," Mr. Zimmer announces.  My attention focuses.

         Shaya sways up to the platform in her very high shoes (I doubt I could manage them as well as her) and takes the interviewee seat.  Her voice is steady- the nervous echoing of it is only a product of my ridiculous mind.  She doesn't think there will be any advantage here to being the daughter of the mayor.  There might something to be said for being a volunteer lifeguard though.  "Not for fighting, but for surviving."

         He asks her about me- about knowing me, because we're the same age, which she didn't that well until this week; about being mentored by me, which she tries to be polite about how she hasn't been all that impressed by me.  "Ask Salvador about that," she suggests, throwing him a potential lifeline for all that she claimed she was leaving him on his own.

         Perhaps going it alone is not as easy as she presumed in the heat of the moment.  The Games divide us, but they also connect us in a way.  No one lives or dies not a part of a web of people and allegiances.  It's not up to any individual.  The world is just too complex to be pared down to one person entirely on their own.

         Shaya and Mr. Zimmer exchange compliments about one another's hair.

         They finish up.

         She did a good job.  She was calm and cool and attractive.  I look forward to being able to tell her so.  That much, at least, I can give her.

         "Also from Four, Salvador Chavez," Mr. Zimmer seems to enjoy putting a bit of a mock-Four accent onto Salvador's name.

         Salvador takes this as an invitation to break out some local dialect, practically shouting "Hola, Señor!" as he bounds onto the stage, "That means 'Hello, Mister,'" he shakes Mr. Zimmer's hand enthusiastically.

         "Now there's a greeting!"  Even on Mr. Zimmer's stage, it strikes me as a bit much, straining Mr. Zimmer's smile a bit further than usual.  Of course, Mr. Zimmer rolls with it, as I've always seen him do.  "Now Shaya's given me the impression that your relationship with Mags is much different than hers is.  How about you tell me about that?"

         "Well," he fidgets nervously as he takes in the the crowd, feeling the combined weight of all their eyes on him, "I'm part of her kind of class, you know?  It was on TV at the beginning of her Tour.  It's 'cuz I really admire her.  She's kind of smart and she's nice to be around."

         "And what kind of things did she teach your class?"

         "Uh," his smile adjusts itself into a more pleasantly sincere configuration, "Fishing tips."

         A gentle murmur of laughter issues from an assortment of spots in the crowd.  It's exactly what they expect to hear about me.  If the popularity of any given mentor could help their tribute, Salvador would have hit upon a very smart way to draw upon what people like about me without having to be any more like me than he already is.  There's a complementariness to us.

         "We also make baskets and stuff with her, weaving reeds and all."

         "That's her talent, isn't it?"

         Salvador pitches his voice low like he's sharing a secret, but his eyes pass over me and he blushes as he replies, "Yes, but she's much better with fishing tips."

         Salvador comments on his poor score and how he's hoping that means he's worked all the bad luck out of his system and can now go on to do well, he compliments Aulie on his training tips (Mr. Zimmer has to ask for clarification as to who "Aulie" is), and vows to try as hard as he can- "I want to meet you here again someday soon."

         "I'll be here waiting," Mr. Zimmer answers.  Though when he comments he seems to have his favorites, here he does a convincing job of neutrality.  I don't know.  Maybe he does like Salvador specially.

         I'd say both of my tributes outperformed their training scores onstage.  Salvador returns to his seat and seems to melt into it, completely drained of energy by the effort he put forth conversing with Mr. Zimmer.

         The interviews go on and I take a breath of relief.

         The girl from 5 wears glasses.  The boy, Coy (are characteristic names common in 5?), tells about how he works at the town general store, which belongs to his family.  He likes painting.  He makes signs for the place.  I'm pretty sure I saw it and the many signs there figured large in my noticing.

         The girl from 6 is very skinny, but tall.  The boy has an unhealthy pallor.  He doesn't seem to have much faith in his ability to do accomplish anything much in the arena but Mr. Zimmer is doing his best to convince him otherwise.  Is this a strategy or does he really feel this helpless?  It isn't as if this is an unrealistic way of thinking.  There are many tributes who don't accomplish much, but most of them don't outright say so beforehand (and some, of course, actually say the opposite, because it's hard to know what you're actually going to be able to do in such a situation).

         There is a strategic advantage to knowing your enemy.  You learn their strengths and weaknesses.  You may be able to guess their plans.  There is also a sort of advantage in not knowing your enemy though, in the Games at least.  The more I knew my opponents, the harder it became to think of killing them.  I was fortunate in that regard that in the end I went head to head with someone I hadn't connected with (and I managed poorly enough even in that situation, too timid to fight to the fullest extent of even my questionable abilities).

         My indecision toward what approach will help me best help my tributes results in my attention regarding the interviews being somewhat mixed.  I mean, I won't have to be the one doing the killing, but even watching will be painful, and yet I…  There are just too many considerations to juggle.

         There are more young tributes than last year.  The 7s are both young.  The girl from 8 is a precious thing in a shiny green dress.  Her name is Silk.  "Like the fabric."  She's an orphan.  Her hobby is sewing dolls for the younger kids at the Community Home.  I can't help but feel drawn to her.  I console myself with the questionable positive that at least she's not mine to lose (but every sort of tribute will come around sooner or later, won't they?  There will be a girl like that from 4 someday and it will kill me to lose her.  I think of his seven sisters and how he's been sewing clothes, maybe even these ones, specially for his tributes, and I worry for Pal's gentle heart).

         Neither of the 9s have any connection to Luna Vetiver.  They aren't kids I remember meeting during my visit there either.  They're older sorts and relatively tough-looking.  The boy voices his wish that there would be a scythe available at the Cornucopia as, "I know more about it than any other potential weapon."

         The 10s, 11s, and 12s are all rather unassuming.  The program slows toward a close.

         That's one Mr. Zimmer springs one last twist on us.  The words seem to echo through a fog to me from somewhere far away.  "For the first time ever, our dedicated viewers at home can play a hand in adjusting the stakes in the Games!"

         Sponsorships.  Just like the all the talk.  For the first time ever.  And this is all of the headstart we're given.  A few among the victors may be ahead of the curve (Jack and his t-shirts), but most of us will just have to start floundering.  Mr. Zimmer goes on explaining how fans can participate- what the authorized phone numbers and web site are.  Only official mentors can decide how to use the sponsor money, but at least Apple and Aulie can help to drum up interest.  Assuming we can get any.  The novelty of the whole procedure will inevitably secure funds, but how will they break down between districts?

         "Well, shoot," Shy grumbles, as taken aback as I am.  She may have had her suspicions before, but at this late point in the pre-Games procedure, who would have expected such a change?

         The tributes head back behind the stage and soon we rise to go meet them.  I might be a bit slower to go than I would've been before the sponsorship announcement.  This is it.  Our last night together.  "So, Ms. Big Shot Mentor," I think at myself, "Any last words?"

 

 

         "This is really real," Salvador says to me when we meet back up.

         "Yeah," I respond.  I think I know what he means.  "There's definitely some point at which it just hits you."

         "Mags, I'm scared of dying."  There's a wildness in his dark green eyes.  When you panic, you're lost.  …Well, maybe it doesn't strictly lead to your death, but I don't think either Sunny or Emmy could present a good case for the aftereffects of panic in the arena.

         I can't let him panic.  Not now.  Not before the arena.  At least inside, wild behavior might have allow him to do something he would ordinarily shy away from.  "Salvador," I try to keep my voice as strong and adult-sounding as possible, "Look at me.  Take a deep breath."

         He does as I say.  I notice Shaya giving me a more interested look than she has at any prior moment in our limited interaction.  "Just about everyone is scared of dying.  There's nothing strange about that.  But the more you focus on it, the worse the feeling's going to get.  It's not easy, but you've got to relax as much as you can so you're able to give it the best you've got tomorrow."

         The backstage area is gradually clearing out.  More than half the tributes, mentors, and associates are already gone.  The boy from 3 is crying and the escort is attempting to comfort him while Beto shifts back and forth, looking stiff and unhappy himself.  The girl is balancing on one foot as she undoes the straps of heels one at a time.

         "I don't want to lie to you, but you know I didn't think I was going to win when I was standing here.  It could be you, Salvador.  It could be either of you."

         "Okay," Salvador agrees, "Okay."  He's not quite at peace, but it's enough to head back to our quarters.  My compliments on both their good stage performances soothe him further.

         I play my next card in the car.  I didn't want to say it backstage where someone I don't trust could hear.  "I remember your grandfather, Salvador, and your baby sister, and you know, I think dying is really scary too, but there are people like your mom and grandmother and me watching over you here and there are people who love you on the other side too."

         He swallows hard.  I can see it.  "I don't want to die," he says.

         "I don't want either of you to die.  I'm going to do everything I can manage to try and get sponsorships to turn things in your favor."

         "This is all very depressing," Apple sighs.  But it is.  What can I do about it?

         Shaya turns to look very sharply at Apple.  "You like Mags, right?" she asks, "You wouldn't do anything to get her trouble, right?"

         "Of course I wouldn't, dear.  She's very important to me," Apple says in a nervous little voice.  I don't think either Apple or Shaya feels very comfortable with the other.

         "Good," she says, then turns back to me, "Tell us something about God, Mags.  To make us feel better about how we're both going to end up dead."

         "Shaya, do you have to?" Salvador grimaces.  Be so sure they're going to wind up dead, I think he means.

         "Everybody knows about your dad, Mags," Shaya presses me, "I know you know."

         I don't know what she thinks I know, but I doubt I know as much as she thinks I do.  Papa always told me things, but cautiously.  He's of two minds of it- that it's important to know, but that safety is important.  Everyone who knows can't just go dying for it.  I don't know what's right to say at a time like this.  I hesitate, but then I speak.  They say it at funerals.  "I am the resurrection and the life."  I go on.  They understand.

         Shaya folds her hands nervously.  Apple looks confused, but curious.  Salvador closes his eyes.

         "Thanks," Shaya says when I've finished, even though it feels like I've said nothing worthwhile at all.  It went by fast and I don't feel better.  But if Shaya and Salvador do, I can hardly complain.

         Back in our quarters, they don't want to watch the recap of the interviews and I don't make them.  Apple seems disappointed.  We eat together and play a table game that involves flicking around a folded up piece of paper that Salvador says the fishermen always play out on Dan Armain's boat.  Aulie talks on the phone to some people he knows (Apple informs me that he's much wealthier than her and, as such, has much wealthier friends he can appeal to).

         I wonder if I should be doing something to try and actively pull in potential sponsors as well, but Apple tells me she's received a message from Nar stating that the official sponsorship system information will be waiting for every mentor at their viewing station tomorrow and I figure I'm bound to mess something up without it.  I don't think I really know anyone in the Capitol outside of our sort of team enough to contact them directly about this anyway.  The information from the Gamemakers might have suggestions?  And if I'm not going to be able to accomplish anything, I think it might be more important to be doing the few small things I can do for the mental health of my tributes.

         Everyone does a good job of keeping it together, at least until we're apart.  Whatever further agonies we suffer that night, we suffer them separately.

         It isn't until nearly three in the morning that I finally fall asleep.  While I'm up, I wish I could talk to Pal or Jack or someone else who would understand, but I don't feel right bothering them.  We all need our sleep.

         …though it feels like I barely got any at all when I'm awoken in the morning.  The pretty blonde Avox from last year is standing over me holding a clock and pointing at its face.  "Oh," I yawn.  "Oh, good morning.  Thank you."

         She nods, puts down the clock, and leaves.  I get dressed in a hurry and rush out to take my tributes to the roof and the hovercraft without putting up my hair.  Salvador comments on it.  "…Is that the first you've ever been in the Capitol without your trademark look?"

         "My hair was just tied back afterward in the hospital," I inform him.  But I suppose it was always up in buns while I was on camera.

         Shaya rubs her eyes.  "At least for the moment, I'm too tired to be scared," she says.

         I take a deep breath.  "Both of you, do your best.  I'll do my best as well."

         "Yeah, I know," Salvador answers.  Shaya doesn't engage with this remark.  I'm not sure she believes I'll be doing my best for her.  But, really, there won't be anything I can do for either of them immediately and it would be ridiculous- plain wrong- to write off either of them from the get-go.  They're both capable to some degree.  Even if they weren't, by my accounting, it would still be wrong (though not impossible to understand).

         Aulie pats Salvador on the back, but only shakes Shaya's hand, which is probably how she prefers it.

         They will never see me again, will they?

         …But I will see them.  I will watch them as they struggle through the Games.  I will see them again in person when they're dead.  I know this as much as I try to deny it.  The odds are not in anyone's favor.  There are twenty-four losers in every Games and only one of them will not also be dead.

         "Goodbye," I whisper, my voice carried away by the noise of the hovercrafts.

         Salvador holds his hand up against a window in the back of the hovercraft and waves to me and Aulie.  I slump a bit as they slip out of view and Aulie holds me up with one strong arm.  "Let's get you together and down to the re-outfitted mentor room," Aulie says.

         I don't know how I'm going to do this, but somehow I have to.  The possibility of sponsorships provides an active part I can play in these Games.  Shaya and Salvador are even more now mine to lose.


	9. Part II, Chapter IV

         So how does one procure sponsorships for one's poor tributes?  The first thing I did upon receiving the information packet was read it of course.  I read it twice.  But knowing technically what I'm meant to do isn't the same as managing to do it.  There's a part of me that thinks they came up with this just to make me agonize more (although this is the place where, as a first-time mentor, I am on equal footing as the rest- no one has looked for sponsors before).  Because it's not just get them into the arena and they're on their own- no, now they can still sink or swim based on my ability to get sponsors, pick gifts, and time their distribution wisely.

         "Excuse me," I adjust my headphones so they're still on my head, but not completely blocking my hearing.  "Do I, uh, have these on right?" I ask Shy, although on either side is a victor I'd judge more technically savvy than me.

         "That's good," Shy reassures me, "And you'll be able to tell better if you need to move them around a bit more after you actually hear through them."

         Beto turns and looks at us.  And smiles.  "'Allo, operator, Districts Four and Five requesting expert assistance?"

         It takes me a minute to realize that he's talking to us and not the actual operator.  He rolls his chair back to lean down and delve into his bag.  He takes out a box and offers each of us a piece of some kind of candy, dark within its transparent wrappers with a mesmerizing swirl of golden caramel in the center.  Instead of waiting for me to pass her the box, Shy leans over me to get one.  "I haven't been able to analyze all the factors involved in this sponsoring scenario well enough to determine whether or not I favor it," Beto declares.

         "Uh, same, but less analytically," Shy agrees.

         "Well," Beto turns his attention back to the various screens in front of him, the viewing screen straight ahead and the touchscreen set into the desk, "Soon to the countdown."

         I tap through the various menus on my own touchscreen.  There are already funds in District 4's sponsorship account.  Some may be the result of Aulie's working the phone lines yesterday, but I assume most of it is just our fans coming straight to us.  I appreciate that immensely.  If it saves either of them, I think either Shaya or Salvador will have themselves to thank.  Maybe some of it's just generic curiosity on the part of these first-time sponsors, but the best work that went toward selling my tributes, they did themselves.

         I realize that Shy hasn't stopped leaning over.  She has her elbow on the arm of my chair.  "Shy, you're peeking."  While partners like Hector and Gerik have their own chairs and screens, they're settled side by side without anything between them to block their view (I guess if they hated one another or something and didn't want to be able to share info they'd have to put up a partition of their own), the rest of us are separated with wooden sides sticking up out of each of the neatly lined up desk-like stations (this set-up seemed to perplex Emmy greatly, but neither Beto nor Shy so much as batted an eye so perhaps it's familiar from some school that's nicer than the majority of us know or a factory or something).

         "Does it bother you with no one on the playing field yet?  You can look at how much money my tributes have got if you want."

         "Err, that's okay."

         "Hmm, then, here's the thing that's bothering me," she sits up, sliding back into her chair, though she keeps her fingers on the arm of mine, drumming her perfect pink nails along the arm.  Without warning she jumps up to stand on her chair, which wobbles backward with the force in a way that makes me nervous.  She looks down the row over my head and Beto's to Hector and Gerik.  Jack isn't here yet, though the rest of us are settled in.  His chair remains empty, angled away from his station.  "Did you know about the sponsorships before Zimmer's announcement?" she points at them challengingly.

         "Sit down and shut up," Luna berates her from the opposite side of the set-up (her station is the one that's lined up against Beto's), "I am _trying_ to speak to a sponsor."

         "My money's on blondie," the District 12 coach chuckles in the direction of his 11-appointed counterpart.

         This comment instantly shifts all of Luna's anger toward him.  If looks could kill.  The victors are a varied bunch, but they're distinctly different from the coaches.  The coaches (well, to the best of my knowledge), aren't killers.  And the coaches are on their way out, really, as the pool of past victors increases.

         "Hey now," Jack Umber enters the room, "Stand down there, Arcium, Luna.  …And…" one eyebrow raises as he contemplates the strange situation, "…You literally stand down, Shy."

         "Oh, thank you so much, so much," Sunny heaves a huge sigh of relief as Shy follows Jack's instructions.

         I wonder what would happen if a fight did break out here.  This crowd could make for a pretty deadly melee even without any traditional weapons present.  Even victors I don't think would like to fight, like Sunny and Emmy, might be provoked into action by that kind of scenario.  It would be bad for all our mental states.

         They'd have to send in Peacekeepers to stop it.  But how quickly would they- the Gamemakers, Victor Affairs, whoever- learn about it?

         Haven't I learned my lessons about the Capitol yet?  I admonish myself for my foolishness.  There are probably cameras.  They show mentor reactions to surprising in-game events, don't they?  Someone watches the watchers.  Capitol in a nutshell.

         "Answer my question, Jack," Shy speaks softly as she challenges him instead, leading me to think Gerik and Hector were only a distraction from 1's victor, "Did you know about the sponsorships before the Zimmer on-air announcement?"  She suspected Gerik and Hector too, but is it somehow less reprehensible if they withheld insider knowledge from her than if Jack did it?

         Jack is wearing his green First Annual Hunger Games t-shirt.

         The pause of his silence hanging in the air is palpable.  I can't force myself to turn and look at him straight on, but Beto is and so, obviously, is Shy.  I can imagine that he's also where some of the others have trained their eyes, even if I can't see them around the others or on the other side of the line of mentoring stations.

         "I'm the same as everyone else here," Jack answers.  No matter how earnest he sounds, with Jack there _is_ some reason to suspect his words may be a put-on.  I hate to think so as much, or more, than any of the rest of us.  "I may have heard more rumors and I may have taken those rumors more seriously than you did because this was the outcome I was gunning for by supporting the fan petitions, but I didn't know the official word a second earlier than any of the rest of you."

         "But all of us aren't the same," Shy whispers.

         "Shy, don't-" Sunny starts.

         She doesn't say any more and Jack doesn't respond to that last accusation of sorts.  That doesn't mean that no one is thinking that Shy's wrong though.  "Let's all do our best," he says instead and takes his seat.  Gerik scoots over to speak with him at a volume I can't hear.

         I get a message on my screen.  It's from Apple, prompting me to "Write a nice blurb about each of your tributes for the official sponsorship page if you get a chance."  I am not particularly familiar with typing, let alone on this flat touchscreen without an actual keyboard, but I try to fulfill her request.  Even someone like me can manage that much.

         The viewing screens- the big one overhead and the more ordinary one on my personal screen- blink to life.  "Tributes secure and preparing for ascent," it informs us.

         "Here we go…" Kayta speaks for all of us as he makes this nervous pronouncement.

         The countdown will begin at any moment.

         While sitting I can't see the smallest trace of anyone on the other side of the mentoring stations.  I haven't heard anything out of Pal the whole time I've been here.  When I arrived he was speaking into his headset in his usual meek tone while carrying on sewing sequins onto some project laid across his lap.  Kayta has been rather reserved as well (he has little faith in even sponsors turning things around for his one- and two-scoring young tributes).

         I look left, wondering if I can make eye contact and exchange some sort of silent greeting with Jack, although Beto, Hector, and Gerik sit between us.  Beto lifts up his glasses and peers under them at his touchscreen, clearing one obstacle from my line of sight.

         Jack looks my way.  At me.

         I can't bring myself to smile.  I give him a thumbs-up.

         The booming voice of Longinus Bronze draws my attention away from Jack's response.  The screens show a large white "60" that turns to black to stay visible with our first shot of the arena.  I tense along with the countdown.  It echoes in my ears through the headset, past and present overlapping.  I'm glad I'm not in there (yet I picture myself there all the same).  The tributes are arranged in a circle around a small body of clear water.  There are some small bags of supplies scattered here and there around the lake and larger ones piled on a floating platform in the center (the water is so clear I can see to the bottom- the taller tributes could probably trudge out to the center on foot).  This particular spot would appear picturesque under other circumstances, but I feel a growing sense of unease for my tributes as the cameras pan out.  There was a lot of water in my Games and a good proportion of it was drinkable.  …This is the only water in the arena.  Or maybe not, but that's what I'm afraid of.

         There is scruffy chaparral and scattered trees.  There are hills of orangish sand.  I catch sight of a trickle of a creek further afield- so there is more water somewhere.  None of the overhead landscape shots give me much context when it comes to knowing how close these features are to our tributes.

         The introductory shots wrap up and my screen splits to show focus on both of my tributes simultaneously- Shaya on the right side and Salvador on the left.  If I want to see what the live feed audience is seeing, I have to switch my screen away from my tributes or spare a moment to glance up at a larger, muted screen above us (the required viewing late afternoon program will be edited together mainly from the live feed footage, but the Games editing wizards will use whatever is most interesting).

         Shaya is breathing fast.  I'm concerned that she's going to start hyperventilating.

         Salvador looks focused, as calm as one can be in this sort of situation.

         The countdown finishes and my tributes spring into action.  At a moment like this, I'm glad that I'm not looking at wider view of the situation.  There are too many people moving at once, too many things to take note of, as it is, coming in and out of frame around Shaya and Salvador.

         They pass one another.  Salvador running in and Shaya running out.  The little slip of a girl from 8 bumps into Shaya and they both stumble a step or two, but neither hits the ground or engages with the other.

         It's hard to watch both screens at once when everything is changing on a second by second basis.

         Salvador rips open a backpack and shuffles around a tin canteen (probably empty) and a can of beans.  Between them is a small hatchet, the type we might keep on a boat.  A pale hand jumps in and grabs onto the handle of the hatchet above Salvador's grip.  Someone thinks they can take it from him, but Salvador is willing to fight.  Whoever it is (a guy, but I can't see enough to tell which), isn't letting go and Salvador isn't strong enough to merely wrest the item from his grasp.  With his free hand he swings the backpack toward the head of his opponent, striking him on the side of the face (it's the boy from 2).  The can of beans falls out, but this breaks the 2 boy's grip on the hatchet enough for Salvador to wrest it away.

         Will he run now?  Or stay and fight?

         In my mind, I will him to run.

         Shaya's scream fills my ears.  She falls to the ground, just barely shielding her face from the soil with her arms as she crashes down to the bear earth.  I see blood rise up between the strands of her hair where the rock struck her.

         The girl from 1- the girl I helped Jack pick the token for- may not have been the one who threw the rock (I didn't see), but she's the one who comes.  She turns the short sword around in her hand, deciding which way is best to wield it.  It looks like a smaller version of the blade that Kayta Hiro favored.  If it's of similar make, its edge will be sharp.  Mercifully so, if she handles it well.  Mercilessly, if she's hesitant or sadistic.

         Shaya turns over.

         I'm torn between wanting her, at the same time, to get up and run, and to not look and go down without having to see that.  Because the girl from 1 is going to do it if she can.  She is Mr. Bronze's favorite this year.

         There's still so much noise in the background, but Shaya's second screech is mic'ed just for me as the girl with the strawberry blond hair takes a slice at her and cuts off a chuck of Shaya's hair and part of her ear.

         Out of the corner of my eye I can see Salvador turning to look.  Has he been keeping a cautious eye on her this whole time?  Does he know Shaya's scream?

         She scrambles in the dirt.

         I look at Salvador, gaping, as Shaya's throat is slashed and she rapidly bleeds out onto the dry ground.

         When her vital signs cease and she is officially dead, her side of the screen goes dark.  Her official photo is displayed alongside the freezeframe of her bloody body.  Shaya Current.  District 4.  Female.  Age: 18 (it's strange to think- she was three months older than me).  Height: 5'5".  Weight: 110 lbs.  To my perception, she is the first tribute to die, and, for my intents and purposes as a mentor, she is the first.  _My_ first.  The first of what, statistically, are going to be many.

         According to the onscreen information, she died fifteen minutes and twenty-four seconds in.  She was the third tribute killed.

         The Thirteenth Hunger Games have only been going for sixteen minutes and counting.

         I stare sort of numbly at Salvador.  …is there something I should be doing now?  …Does he need anything?  Should I be considering what kind of use to make of the meager (compared to the prices of all the significant non-food items listed in the digital catalogue) funds I've acquired for my tributes thus far?  …Because there's no point in holding onto them for later if neither of my tributes are going to make it out of the bloodbath.

         But I don't do anything.  My hands linger over the controls.  I have no good ideas.  Everything feels like it would be useless.  For Shaya, everything we did was useless.

         Salvador and the girl from 1 make eye contact, but neither pursues the other.

         Across the mentors' control room, directly opposite me though invisible to me from this position, Emmy Pollack lets out a strangled screech as her female tribute is drowned in the lake by the 12 girl.  I think this distracts nearly all of us for a second.  To my right, I can see the hair standing up on Shy's arm as she glances up, spooked by Emmy's reaction.

         I look back at Salvador to see him run.

 

         Salvador leaves the bloodbath behind.  He runs.  He runs until he trips on a rise in the sandy ground.  At this point, he appears to be very alone.  He breathes hard and pushes himself up off his hands and knees to sit and catch his breath and appraise things.

         I also appraise the situation.

         It's real, though I can hardly believe it.  Shaya is dead.  As fast as that.

         Kayta Hiro has left his station to sit on a couch in the back of the room.  It occurs to me what his abandoning his station so permanently must mean.  7 is the first district to be knocked out.  Both of his tributes are dead just as he unfortunately expected.

 

         The day settles into an uneasy rhythm.  Avoxes come and go taking orders from other victors for lunch and other things.  At about noon Aulie brings mine.  The District 12 coach calls in his official speller at a time when no victor has left for longer than a bathroom break and Kayta heckles him from his place on the couch but the man doesn't seem to care.

         Salvador is thirsty after his run, but he's not dried out enough for me to be worried about him yet.  I check the price of water- it varies based on the amount and container.  I hope he can find the creek I saw in the overhead shot instead of going back toward the Cornucopia pond.

         The boy from 8, wounded during the initial bloodbath, expires.  I am not paying enough attention to the general feed to notice the details, but when I readjust my headphones to scratch the side of my head I hear a sound that I think might be Pal crying gently.

         Escort Ferdinand shows up to sit with Emmy just in time for the District 10 boy to meet a rather messy end.  I am relieved he's here because her reaction to it is unintelligible and worrisome.  He walks her out quickly.  It's probably for the best that she doesn't stay.  I assume that if anyone can calm her down it will be Ferdinand.

 

         One of my general wonderings is confirmed when I learn I have an official fan club.  A number of small donations that built up into much of what I have in the account now came through them.  Because I was too clueless to tap into this potential source of sponsor revenue, Apple has contacted the club president on my behalf and promised that I will specially acknowledge my fans for their kind contribution.  Initially she wants me to speak with them live (though not face to face), but this idea brings out the shyness in me, so I promise to let her record me thanking them instead at a quieter time in the Games.

         Apple sends me a list of the names of the fan club members who contributed and I skim over it.  Some of the names seem vaguely familiar.  Maybe they sent me birthday cards or gifts.  It's certainly possible if they have the disposable income to give their money away to my- Salvador's- cause.

         Up on the main screen, the tributes from 2 kill a snake and discuss whether or not they think it's safe to eat.

         They receive the first sponsor gift in the history of the Hunger Games: a toothpick.

         "Clever!" I hear Jack remark, impressed.

         The gift sends its message.  "What I learned from my mother," Hector comments into his headset- whether for the benefit of an operator or for a Gamemaker-requested soundbite, I can't tell, "How to be frugal!"  The 2s eat the snake.  Neither of them is particularly impressed with the taste.  The boy makes use of the toothpick afterward, joking that he'd like a better gift next time and that this is an indication of how little his mentor loves him.  The girl is quietly grateful.

         This first gift opens the floodgates of spending, though I doubt anyone is acting recklessly.  Beto, Luna, and the District 11 coach send water to their tributes (Luna's are together and only the boy from 11 remains).  Beto, despite having both tributes still in the running, sends a plastic bottle only to his girl.  The boy's not better off.  It's just some sort of favoritism.

         The tributes from 1 returned to the Cornucopia pool and have water that way.  The tributes from 2 took water from it with them before they left.  The girl from 8 has stumbled upon the creek.  I wonder if this means that Shy, Sunny, and the District 12 coach lack the funds to send even a small amount of water to their needy tributes or if they are holding out for some reason.

         I wonder if I should send Salvador something to drink.  Opening the digital catalogue, I can see right away that even a small bottle of water like Beto sent his female tribute boasts an over-inflated price in my eyes.  …Of course, I don't know what things cost in the Capitol.  Maybe a bottle of water does cost this much.  It is a third of the funds I have.

         The way Salvador rubs his temples, I think he has a headache.  The sun is headed downward.  It's hot in the arena.  Even if it didn't look it, the onscreen statistics tell me so.  At least the night will provide some relief from the temperature, but that's not likely to do anything to restore the moisture he's lost.

         I manage to clumsily ring Aulie to ask for his opinion.  "I was thinking I should send him water, since I can afford at least a little bit.  I know how bad it feels getting dehydrated and, well, I was wondering what you thought?"

         "I have some possible sponsorship prospects lined up assuming that he makes it through the night.  'Talk to me again tomorrow' so many of them said.  I shouldn't make the decision for you, Mags, but if it were up to me, I'd send it to him."

         This is all the encouragement I need.  It's good that he doesn't need the water in any particular rush because it takes me a bit of wrangling to figure out how to order it from the operator, but eventually I work things out (and the woman on the end of the line is very nice) and after a moment a parachute arrives, drifting down to meet my tribute.  The one I haven't failed yet.  I think about Shaya.

         Salvador drinks his first swig with relish then cautiously slows his consumption.  "Thank you, Mags," he says quietly.

         I feel bad about Shaya.  I feel bad thinking Salvador should've made a bigger show out of his prize.

         The water, at least, will keep him fighting on a little while longer.

 

         Salvador doesn't turn his axe on any people that day, though he does wield it to ably cut into a stand of thick thorn bushes.  He's making himself a hiding place for the night.  It's a good idea.  Once he's into the bush and settled down, he carefully pulls the swathes of thorny branches he hacked away back in front of him.  They may not provide perfect protection, but they're a very clever deterrent.  He is shielded a bit from view and the way the sharp points scratch Salvador's hands and arms even when he tries to work carefully around them is a good indication of how treacherous they would prove to anyone who attempted to rush in.

         The sponsors Aulie mentioned will bite now, I hope.  As the field narrows, the number of choices diminishes (though not sponsoring anyone always remains an option).  The sooner I record my message to the fan club the sooner they may be spurred to drum up further funds for Salvador's sake.  I hope they aren't put off by how quickly I lost Shaya.  …I wonder what I will say to her family when I go home…

         But Salvador is smart.  By now they should be able to see.

         I hear the national anthem heralding the show in the sky through my headset and automatically look up to see it.  This takes my eyes up past the raised screen to the blank white ceiling.  Old habits, I suppose, die hard.  I look back to the large screen to see what Salvador is seeing (my personal screen keeps the camera focused on his face, providing his reaction to this show).

         Although he was out of the running by the end of the bloodbath, Kayta has stayed until the evening's presentation of the fallen tributes.  He rubs his hands over his face.  He looks old beyond his years and very tired.  He's giving Pal's dark-eyed tiredness a run for its money.

         Seven tributes were killed in the bloodbath.  Nine are dead with the setting of the sun.  Many more than the first day of my Games.  These Games might be shorter, or they might just have a different character.

         Because they go in district order, it turns out mine is first.  Having failed to completely keep track of all the other tributes as they fell (I mean, I was just noticing the completed sets from the other inner districts, wasn't I?), it's a punch to the gut.  It's her file photo from her time here in the Capitol.  Shaya died and there was nothing I could do for her.  What could I have done differently?  Anything?

         It didn't matter what her story was if someone meant to kill her right out of the dock.  It had nothing to do with Shaya at all.  It's just the way of the Games.

         I stand up for her.  Out of respect.  Standing, I can see further to each side from my station and a little over the barriers to catch the faces of my fellow mentors.

         The tributes are proceeding while my mind stalls.  My gaze trails slowly over the people here, but either no one notices or no one cares.  Onscreen (in the sky) there's the boy from 6 (Sunny's face is tear-stained, Teejay is sleeping in his chair), both from 7 (they were all but the opposites of Haakon and Meridew, though they were clearly allied together, they were so hapless and so young), the boy from 8 (Pal isn't looking at him, his eyes glued to his girl and whatever she's doing on his personal screen), both from 10 (but Emmy is gone, having left in the midst of, well, it was hard to decide if it were some kind of fit or what), the District 11 girl, and finally the District 12 boy.  The coaches for the victor-less districts don't seem affected at all by this recapping of their losses.  They don't relate like victors do.  They don't relate like even plain old district citizens would.

         Even victors from other districts would have a more personal investment in the success or failure of the 11s and 12s.  Maybe there are advantages to not being emotionally involved, but I have to admit I can't see them yet.

         I can't imagine that there won't be at least one per district someday, but comparing the way these coaches are mentoring to the way even the most neutral or clouded victors appear to have, until some tributes come along who are so superlative that they can sell and save themselves, 11 and 12 may be doomed.

         Once the anthem is over, everyone seems to relax a bit.  It's not as if our tributes are safe or there's any real break in the Games, but the end of the salute to the fallen concludes the material that will be included in tonight's required viewing, so it's unlikely the Gamemakers will introduce any twists or purposely hassle the tributes at this time this early in the game.

         It's strange that it's dark in the arena, but we're still several hours from sunset here.  Obviously the arena isn't all that near the Capitol, but is it in another timezone, or is it artificially set that way?

         Salvador lies on his back with his arms underneath his head, staring through the cover of thorns up at the sky (up at me, though he doesn't quite know that).  He sort of sniffles (maybe he's thinking about his friends and family back home, maybe he's thinking about Shaya), then smiles.  A brave face is the right face for the camera.

         …so what do I do to keep on selling him?

         …who do I sell him to?

 

         "Good night, troopers," Kayta waves at the room as he leaves, "If you want me, you know where to find me."

         "…Is there something I should know about this?" I lean over and ask Shy.

         "He's going up to his floor to drink a bottle of something hard and call his girl."  Once again, she doesn't seem to mind cluing me in.  "It's kind of rare, I think, for Kayta to be out this fast.  It's 'cuz they were just little kids.  The bigger Sevens can do things."

         "You still have both your tributes, Shy."

         "We'll just have to see how this goes," she shrugs.  This means that either her tributes have no special secret talents to draw upon or she's doing a good job of being pokerfaced about them.  With Shy, I have to admit, it could be either.  She's very friendly and nice, but that doesn't mean she's not also calculating.

         We turn back to our stations.  I try to decide who I can call.  I can't simply rely on the fans of the game (the fans of my district?  of me?  of Shaya or Salvador specifically?) who are stepping up of their own accord.  I have to take full advantage of what the sponsorships' existence affords me.

         I listen to the dial tone.  It doesn't offer me any suggestions.

         Aulie comes down and swaps places with me so I can go up to my quarters and make a recording for the fan club with Apple.  She patiently tapes me on that tiny computer-device she uses so much as I stumble through take after take of thanking the donators by name, playing up my hopes for Salvador (I mean, seeing him outlast so many other tributes does raise my hopes, but not as high as I'm acting for the fan club's sake), and then "baiting the fans" in Apple's words by answering some of their questions about me and examining some, um, "fan works" on their webpage.

         There's a faction that would like to see me in a romantic relationship.  Alternately, there are fans who would prefer we just stay friends and suggest various other possible romantic interests for me (Pal and Shy (the screen cap collection one girl has put together about us is rather convincing in suggesting some level of attraction…) figure prominently, though there are also more generic wishes that I fall for someone in the Capitol or back home in 4).  I get a bit flustered looking at all of this which Apple thinks will please them just perfectly.  No one that into me expects more than momentary displays of suave coolness.

         "Is it good enough?" I inquire over Apple's shoulder as she does a quick run-through, looking over and clipping together the best parts of the various snippets of material.

         "It will do just fine, dear."

         We eat dinner together, than I take back over from Aulie for a while.  It's still too early to go to sleep (and it's going to be hard to sleep at all with Salvador in the arena and Shaya on my conscious), but I'll have to try.

         The remaining victors seem a bit listless.  Most of the tributes are sleeping.  The girl from 2 stays guard while her partner sleeps.  Sunny is crying softly, her face pressed against a blanket, that with its precise stitching and homey patchwork suggests to me a Pal Fields-make.  Pal is gone and an athletic-looking woman has taken his place at the District 8 station, though he seems to have left a good number of sewing supplies behind on the desk area surrounding the touchscreen.  …Is he finally done with that seemingly endless task of sewing that he was involved in before?

         One of several insets showing sleeping tributes on the general live feed reveals his girl, her cheeks pink-flushed with the cool of the night air, breathing quietly through her slightly parted lips.  I can picture her being friends with Faline.  They share the same dark hair and daintiness.

         "Yes, Beto," the man who has taken the District 3 spot is saying into his headset.  He reads Beto a long string of numbers off a sheet of paper.  I haven't the slightest idea what it means.

         In another sleeping tribute inset I see that Shy's boy, the amateur painter, has smudged his cheeks with the orange-ish soil of the region of the arena he's trying to blend into to good effect.  He has also managed to find some kind of darker dirt or other material (or maybe Shy sent him something while I was away?) and drawn a shaky, mirror-less rendition of open eyes onto his eyelids.  It's a very clever idea.  I'm impressed.  It should buy him at least some second-guessing from any would-be attacker, especially at night.

         "Good, huh?" Shy catches me looking.  "He came up with that all by himself."

         "You never know what skills are going to come in handy in the arena…"

         Jack, apparently away for some break or business, returns to mentor central.  He smiles at me.  "Will they do any mentor interviews?" Shy asks him, "I mean, there's always room for filler blurbs, right?"

         "They might," he shrugs, "Ask Danae.  Your Victor Affairs guy is in the studio now too.  Between the two of them, they've got to be able to work something out."

         "I'll go too," Hector gets up to accompany her.

         "Do me a favor?" Jack points his speller over to Shy's emptied spot, which is probably not proper, but is a kind courtesy.  The gold-haired (not blond, a really gold gold) woman hesitates, but follows his instructions.

         "Did you watch the tape from your birthday?" he asks me.

         I can't lie about it.  "N-no," I avoid his green eyes and settle for looking at this patiently smiling mouth.  "I was too embarrassed.  I, uh, I'll get to it eventually.  I promise."

         His smile collapses into a sad, thin line.

         "T-tonight," I amend my words.  "I will.  Don't worry about it, Jack.  Get back to Samantha and, uh-" What's the name of the boy?  "Indi?  Err, Indiana."

         "I'm sorry about Shaya.  And I want to reassure you that it wasn't your fault, okay, because I'm sure that you're thinking that.  No one can ever win more than halfway here."

         "I know."

         "I think it helps to be reminded sometimes."  He holds his hand out to me.  What does he mean by it?  I'm not sure how to respond to his gesture.

         He wants to be reminded too?  "You could win halfway," I turn his statement around.  It's funny how when I'm telling it to someone else I go for the positive spin.  "Your chances aren't bad.  You still have both your tributes in there and each of them seems capable."  I take his hand.  "Samantha has that lucky clover."

         "I suppose you're right.  Maybe I can.  …I appreciate it," he wraps his fingers around mine.

         I suppose I chose my words correctly.

         "I'm glad we're friends," he shakes my hand and retreats to his station to do his job.  As always, he makes me wonder.

         When I make my last check over Salvador and the account standing before turning things over to Aulie for the night I am left even more off-balance by the additions I see to our sponsor funds.  There is an extremely modest addition that was apparently wired in by Papa ("Dan said he found some money in his couch so I doubled it," reads the added description) that makes me smile.  It's the "J. Umber" donation that gets me.  There is no other J. Umber, I think.  There can't be.

         If that money were to save Salvador, how would I ever make it up to him?

         I don't remember reading any rule against putting money toward your own tributes, so it's not like he's voting Salvador as his third choice victor.

         I don't understand it.  I'm awed as always by how much I don't understand.

         "I'll call and wake you if there's a problem," Aulie assures me.

         I go up to my room.  It's very quiet.  Either I'm all alone there or Apple is sleeping.  I cue up the recording that Jack gave me.  I have to keep my promise.

         "And now a very special happy birthday message to my friend Mags, who, as you all know, is turning eighteen today," Jack chirps onscreen.  His white and yellow attire underscores his cheerful mood.  There is a vase filled with daffodils and purple irises to his left.

         This was several months ago when it was still winter.

         "Mags, I hope you're happy today, doing something fun and having something good to eat, of course, because we all know that's what you like.  We all like to see you laugh too, right?" he prompts the people who staff and star in the other segments of the program and the camera cuts to two female reporters nodding and smiling.  "So, I don't know, maybe my singing's not so good, but I hope that it makes you laugh."

         Jack's television coworkers look expectant before the camera zooms back in to leave him alone onscreen.  "Hello, happy birthday, I wish the best for you!"  I've never heard this birthday song before.  Is it from 1?  "Happy birthday, Maa-ags, may this next year be great too!"

         He finishes and is only able to hold his silence for several seconds before he bursts out laughing.  There is a touch of color in his cheeks that causes a similar shade to rise in mine.  I am relieved that no one is watching with me (never mind that any number of people already saw this back when it first aired- that's not the same as it would be sharing the viewing with them).

         "Thanks for being my friend, Mags!  See you around!"  The recording cuts off choppily where it switches to the last part of the program following Jack's segment.  That's it.

         I turns off the screen and sit on my bed in the dark.

         When I try to sleep, I think about Shaya again.  It's a bad night.

 

         Fortunately, however, it was a comparatively good night for Salvador as arena nights go.  "Kid sleeps like a rock out there," Aulie chuckles when I meet him at the mentoring station, "Funny considering the trouble he was having here."

         "Wore himself out, I guess."

         Many of the other mentors have beaten me back.  This isn't to say a lot of interest is happening now, but the tributes are waking up and that means things will begin again in earnest.  When Salvador awakes he remain lying in his thorn bush hiding place for a while.  He takes his token out of his pocket and runs his fingers over its surface, looking at it.  "Oh, I'm hungry," he groans.  He drinks a little water, but remains thankfully conservative with its use.

         I idly browse the catalogue.  The price of water has jumped since yesterday.  The other prices have risen too, I think.  All of them, though not necessarily at the same rate.  It might relate to their perceived utility.

         "Ah, sparks!" Shy curses mildly at something on her screen.  I can't help but wonder if she's bothered by the same thing as me.  But both her tributes are out there.  There could be a lot of things happening that would provoke that reaction.

         Shy's boy happily receives a very small gift of water.  That might have been the problem.  She doesn't send anything to her girl.  With her quick death, Shaya spared me this one pain- I'm not forced to chose.  Beto and Shy, who have both their tributes in the game yet but not allied together have the worst of this, I imagine.  Even if you have a preference, with your pair together they can't necessarily determine it.  They'll split the gifts on their own.  That's what the Nines are doing with some sort of protein bar Luna sent.

         "You watched?"

         I turn around to see Jack standing behind me.  "Um, sorry if this is impolite," he gestures vaguely toward my screen while looking away from it.  What he means is that he doesn't want me to think I'm there to spy on Salvador.  Not that he can tell his tributes about what Salvador's doing (considering whether or not it would be possible to climb one of those thorny trees without getting all cut up) anyway.

         "It's okay."  I'm more concerned about his willingness to walk away from his tributes and interact with me.  Constant vigilance seems to be the order of the day for most of us (according to Hector, Pal's departure from the mentoring center lasted only about two hours which he found rather peculiar, despite looking exhausted he preferred dozing in the chair at this station to being anywhere else).  Jack is comparatively lackadaisical.  I can't parse this.  Not when he would go to that trouble to find a suitable token for his girl.  Not when he's selling those shirts to support them.  The puzzle just won't piece itself together in my mind.

         "…I did watch it."  To say so makes me timid.

         My mind is in one place and my eyes in another as I track Salvador's apparent decision to forget about the thorn trees and hike about to, I don't know, see what he can see?  I'm sure he's hungry.  It's going to take a toll on him, but he can manage a lot longer without food than without water.  I'm afraid to get into a tight spot where I desperately need to spend but don't have the funds.

         Jack awaits some comment on his performance.  I think about him blushing in the recording.

         "I liked it.  I mean, it was embarrassing, but I liked it.  You're very nice to me.  I'm glad too, you know.  That we're friends."

         "Thanks.  I'm always happy to hear that."

         "N-now get back to your tributes," I scold him.

         "No, don't get back to your tributes," Shy counters in a whiny joking around sort of tone, "Stay and flirt with Mags and let them take care of themselves like every other year.  You have too many advantages."

         "What she said," the District 11 coach agrees.

         "I'm not flirting," I comment mildly.  No point in protesting too much.  But that's certainly not my intent.  I don't flirt, at least not on purpose.  Can you flirt by accident?  Salvador is using his axe to dig around near some leaves that look sort of turnip-ish.  He's definitely got food on the brain.

         Up on the big screen the 1s are arguing.  The girl shoves the boy.  He shoves her back, into the pool of water at the Cornucopia.  Jack abruptly leaves us to return to his station.  Is this going to be it for one of the 1s?  It could be.

         But instead of going in for the kill, holding Samantha down or anything, Indiana lets her flail her way back to the surface.  She curses colorfully at him and at great length, stumbles out of the water, sits down, and checks on her token to see that she hasn't lost it in the shuffle.

         Indiana laughs at her, but overall they seem to have made up as fast they began to argue.  "Hey, look," Samantha says.  She points out across the grass.  Someone has poked their head up in response to the sounds of the struggle.  It's the District 12 girl.

         I don't watch.  I figure I'm not obligated.  I'm adding enough fuel to the fire of my guilt and nightmares as it is without bearing witness to every tribute's death.  I made up my mind that my only obligation is to my own.

         The District 12 girl screams a lot and for what seems like a long time.  The 12 coach rattles off some curses that instantly put the District 1 tributes to shame before kicking over his chair and marching out with the noise of the canon.  "Sore loser," the District 11 coach laughs.  I think they must have made a bet.

         Salvador doesn't hear any of this.  He digs up some weird roots but is afraid to eat them (I am glad he doesn't- they're unfamiliar and make me nervous).  Instead he puts two into his backpack and carries on hiking around.

         Kayta shows up to watch everything for a while from the couch and he brings a big thermos of soup with him.  It smells good and he clearly enjoys making everyone hungry.  A bunch of food orders go out at once.

         I feel sorrier for Salvador in his hunger now, but I stand by my position of not purchasing any food for him yet.

         Sponsor funds trickle in in small amounts (many of them are earmarked as "fan club" though, so I think they must have received and been pleased with my response to their donations).

         It seems shaping up to be a quiet day.  There are a lot of near misses between different tributes traveling up and down the hills and fields and ditches of the not particularly leaf-heavy arena.  Some of these near misses are not as coincidental as we expect Mr. Zimmer will paint them for the audience's sake.

         The girl from 5 definitely saw her counterpart engaged in his quiet camouflage gambit, but when her paused dragged on, she acted as if she had only stopped to wipe her glasses and kept on moving.  It's still early for one of the less gutsy players to go for their district partner (and the players I'd guess are the gutsier ones here are holding onto theirs as allies in the meantime- which partnership will snap first, since odds are at least one has to- 1's, 2's, or 9's?).

         The girl from 6, shaken from the single kill she made (and probably uncomfortable with thirst), caught up in the fear and fury surrounding the gong's tolling at the Cornucopia has purposely avoided the boy from 3, the girl from 5, and the pair from 9.  It would be better for her to stop moving around and conserve her strength, I think, hoping that Sunny can scrape together the money to hydrate her.

         The boy from 5's got his face- and hand-painting going on, but the really well hidden tribute is the girl from 3.  Sure, the cameras were able to find her, but as far as I can tell, no other tribute has the slightest idea where she is since she climbed up into a dead tree and expanded on the hollowed out interior until she could fit her whole body inside.

         In the late afternoon, it turns out the tribute who gets the blood spilling again may be mine.  Cautiously, Salvador has worked his way back to the Cornucopia.  The 1s have left.  Every obviously useful supply has been ransacked from the place.  He picks through some of the trash left behind- some bags the 1s didn't need, having consolidated their supplies, some food wrappers.  "At least I can get some more water," he says to himself, "I can't imagine it'd kill me any faster than the Ones."  It's a decent assumption.  It appears safe enough.

         He looks up at the sound of shifting gravel.  The boy from 3 is on the other side of the pond.  Salvador pulls his axe out of his pack, sitting on the ground in front of him.  "Hey, Three," he calls, "Do you have anything to eat?"

         "Not to share with you," the 3 boy answers.

         Salvador holds the hand axe over his head, "You got anything like this?"

         His opponent doesn't like that.  I automatically skip through the sponsor catalogue to the page displaying the various bandages and other first aid supplies.  I don't want Salvador to start this.  I don't want to watch him kill.  But if he's going to live, at some point he'll have to.

         "Come on over here why don't you and find out," the boy from 3 counters.

         They stare at each other over the water for a while, stalemated.  The 3 boy makes the first move, but even though it may slow him, Salvador comes at his opponent at an angle, cutting into the water.  The 3 boy's hand goes straight for the shaft of the axe.  Any suggestion that he might have had a similarly deadly item on hand is dismissed in my mind as pure bluff.

         "Ooooh," I hear Beto sigh alongside me.

         Salvador pulls the axe away.  And flings it back over his shoulder to the deepest part of the pool.  He can get it back later, but the boy from 3 probably can't- at least not by swimming (he could fish for it through).  They grapple a bit.  The boy from 3 wants to stay out of the water as much as he can.  I don't blame him.  I squeeze the edge of the desk helplessly.  Even if I there's something I could send Salvador to help him kill this boy, I can't do that.  Not yet.

         Someday that's a step I may have to take.

         Salvador is stronger than the 3 boy.  He pulls him deeper into the water, but as his opponent is seized by panic he only fights back all the harder, kicking and flailing.

         The image on the main screen is identical to the one before me.  Everyone is watching this.  Looking from my small screen up to the large one I feel sort of disassociated from the event taking place.  Like it's staged.  Maybe that's how people in the Capitol feel.  Two boys are roughhousing particularly harshly.

         Salvador holds his opponent down, pushing his head underwater.

         Is this it?  Will he do it?

         Then his eyes grow wide in disbelief.  "What am I doing?!" he must be thinking.  He lets the paler, arena-sunburnt boy up.  He gasps for air, choking and coughing.

         But if Salvador doesn't kill this boy, then what?  Will Salvador walk or swim away?  Will they just go their separate ways?  "Mags, it's hard!" Salvador shouts, looking up into the air (he doesn't immediately meet the 'eye' of the camera, but it swivels to meet him), appealing directly to me.  His eyes are tearing up.  "What do I do?"

         The boy from 3 recovers his breath enough to strike back against Salvador, biting his hand hard.  Salvador yelps in pain and surprise, but this seems to be enough for him to make up his mind about what course of action to take.  He pushes his valiantly struggling opponent back down.

         It seems to take a long time before the canon fires, officially confirming the death.

         Still, Salvador lifts up one hand, tentatively.  Then the other.  He wades back to the bank and lays down on his stomach, exhausted.  He would be easy pickings now.

         The main screen shows an inset of the 2s wondering who was killed, which then expands to become the larger picture, focusing on their exploits, leaving Salvador lying on the ground in the inset.

         He slowly moves his arm to cover his face.  "Oh," he moans to himself, "Oh, God."  No one will hear it but the editors and me.

         Beto wheels his chair back out and stands up.  He puts his hand to his chest in a gesture both pained and sincere.  "No hard feelings," he tells me.

         I killed one of this tributes too.  I'm impressed by his ability to stay distanced from this.  Of course, I don't feel any special anger toward Jack for his girl's killing Shaya.  There was no special malice in it.  Ada, Shaya, this boy- none of them were killed for who they were specifically or even what district they came from.  "I appreciate it," I thank Beto for his understanding.

         He returns to his seat.  He has his girl still to play guardian angel to.  There can only be one survivor, but I hope that she does well.  Doesn't die too miserably at least.

         I feel dazed.  Salvador snaps out of it faster than I do, I think.  Slowly, so slowly, he rises up onto his elbows, then his knees.  He wades back into the water.  He swims out to roughly the deepest point, around the platform in the center, which bobs gently in the middle of the pool, dives down and retrieves the axe, bringing it awkwardly back to dry land with him.  He peels off his shirt and sits down in the scraggly grass, enjoying the temperature of the arena slightly after his dip.  The water is clearly his element.  He seems refreshed by the act of swimming.

         If he has to die, it should be here.

         I'm shocked at this thought as soon as it passes through my mind.  I mean, one has to understand that such a thing is still likely- more than half the tributes are still out there and that includes all the ones I'd guess are toughest- and it's not going to help either Salvador or me to be delusional, but- I've gone crazy if I hadn't before, haven't I?

         After enjoying the sun a while (though he's developing some sunburn, the same as pretty much everyone else though not as bad as many), he picks the bundle the boy from 3 left behind.  It isn't a bag as I initially thought.  It's just the outermost layer of his arena uniform rolled up around his water bottle, a piece of some kind of rough-looking hardtack-ish bread (that's not District 3's typical tiny bread), and a coil of rope.  He didn't think to use the rope against Salvador.  Maybe he didn't have a good idea how.

         "Oh, I'm glad," Salvador says and tries taking a big bite out of the bread, before wincing back, "Augh!"  It must be really hard- it hurts his teeth.  He massages his jaw and dips the bread in the pond, hoping to soften it up.

         That's the rest of Salvador's day, taking his supplies out to the floating platform and picking at the unpleasant brick of bread.  He mostly tries to stay low, lying flat on the wood to keep from sticking out too much and attracting attention.  The pond would at least slow down and would-be attackers, assuming no one shows up with a long-range weapon and the skills to deploy it (the boy from 5 has a bow and arrows).

         I don't do anything more useful than bear witness.  Today that will have to be enough.

         Only two deaths makes for a short showing of the fallen.  The boy from 3; the girl from 12.

         Salvador sleeps on the platform.

         He sleeps well again.  I sleep better.

 

        

         The tributes from 2 are doing stretches together, like warm-ups, when I return in the morning.  They eat dried fruit and jerky for breakfast.  "Turkey jerky," the girl laughs, "Aww, I would've liked beef."

         "Don't complain- if you don't like it, then give it to me," the boy replies.

 

         Salvador finishes off the bread brick, though his expression tells me that it was clearly pretty awful.  He swims around in the pond for a while, though there isn't a whole lot of distance to cover in any given direction.  He settles for making circles.  He mutters to himself words that even I can't hear, not over the splashing of the water.

         "Did anyone watch the official required viewing broadcast?" Sunny asks the room.

         "…Part of it," Jack supplies, which seems to be the best answer she's going to get.

         "Oh, okay," Sunny gets up to talk to him, though she turns a cautious look back toward Teejay who gives some kind of "I've got it," answer.  It's his coherency she has to be worried about, not his dedication.  He's stuck it out watching her as much as anyone.      

         Sunny goes over to Jack's station.  "Did they feature her any?" I can hear her speaking softly to him.  "What did they focus on?"

         "Well, the killing of course."  Jack's voice is louder.  His tone is wry.  "But I know you know that.  Jeff spotlighted the camo-tactics.  There was lots about the sponsoring, which is also obvious, I suppose.  I think the editors are doing a good job being largely unbiased.  Watching, I wouldn't say anyone jumps out as the favorite tribute."

         "…it wouldn't be her though," Sunny whispers.  Her voice is cracking.

         Jack's voice drops too, but I can still hear him, "Are you having trouble getting sponsors?  I-" at least for a few more seconds.  Salvador is making too much noise now, swimming to shore.  He heads away from the pond to the nearest copse of spiny trees.  I don't know why he's decided to leave the Cornucopia.  I don't think he should, but it's not up to me.  How long will it take me to figure out this decision?

         I glance at the main screen.  The 2s are listening to something.  The girl is making a "shh, be quiet" gesture to her partner.  I hold my breath.  Even without any of the particularly neat editing that will accompany the main broadcast whatever TV wizard selects which camera to highlight on the main feed sure makes a good, tension-raising selection.

         The 2 girl points with a hammer.  No, nothing ominous about that at all.

         They're on high ground and can see someone moving around down further belong.  Carefully, they begin to pack their things.

         I am allowed a feeling of relief as I compare what they're looking at to Salvador's current terrain.  He's managed to get up into one of those thorn-covered trees, albeit haphazardly and not without getting scratched.  The 2s are looking at an area with tall stalks of dry grass.

         Teejay curses vehemently, then pushes away from the table, sending his chair skidding backward with the force.  "No," he declares, "No, I can't."  I think everyone on our side of the stations looks as he rises to his feet and staggers over to Sunny.  "Rae," he grabs her- and she is already looking pale, but now she turns several shades paler and quivers in a way that makes me wonder if she's going to faint, "I can't do this," Teejay gives her a small, measured shake.

         Sunny pushes past him and throws herself into the chair and situation.

         Teejay remains standing near Jack's station, beginning to tremble himself, until Jack walks him over to the couch and sits him down.  "Close your eyes, Tee," Jack attempts to soothe him, "Sunny's got this."

         And maybe she does, but it's not about to end as quick as that.  The 2s have a ways until they catch up with 6's girl and they're not racing to make it obvious that they're attempting to close that gap.

         The burst of action that occurs now comes as a surprise to all but perhaps one person in this room.  With a gleam of light on metal, a dark-haired girl barrels out of the thorny underbrush at another petite figure.  The girl from 8; the girl from 5.

         "Oh no," I hear myself gasp as if from far away.

         Pal's girl probably manages to do as much damage to herself as Shy's girl does to her in their encounter.  It's one of those really messy fights that happen between two determined opponents with little skill and about equal strength.

         Mr. Bronze must be loving it.

         "Damn, that takes me back," Gerik grits out, distracted from the quiet current meanderings of 2's hunting tributes by the bloody melee playing out above us (I can't say they're likely to need him now anyway, the two of them versus that one girl).

         "Are you watching this Jack?" Hector chimes in.

         "I wish I weren't," Jack says, "This looks way too familiar to my old eyes."

         It's true (and I think most of us, Shy and Pal excepted) are fixated on the awkward melee above.  The girl from 5 doesn't have any real weapons, just a thorny branch she broke off one of the arena's many dry, dead trees.  There were lots of homemade-job sort of weapons like that in the First Games.  There are some in every Games, but after the sheer hand-to-hand desperation and brutality of the First Games, there was an appreciable increase in items intended to kill included in the arenas.  It was one part of making the potential deaths and potential victors more varied.  …And, therefore, more entertaining (and if it's not entertaining, why would people in the Capitol persist in watching?).

         Finally the 8 girl inflicts the sort of damage that will end it.  The knife went into the 5 girl's arm deep.  She's going to bleed out.  The little 8 girl, scratched and blood-spattered and gaping backs away and covers her eyes, smearing more blood across her face.  She can't bear to look at what she's done.  There isn't a person in this room who can't understand that feeling.  She sobs and makes some choking noses, but doesn't actually throw anything up.

         You can tell it feels like forever to her until the girl from 5 finally dies.  After her cannon, the 8 girl gathers up the strength to venture back over and see what she's done, or at least retrieve her knife, which she left lying in the dirt.

         Pal releases a long sigh of relief.  I glance over at Shy to see her wipe sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, but she doesn't seem too broken up.  She's probably seamlessly directed all of her focus over to the boy.  I should be used to that pragmatic side of hers by this point, but it still jars me.  Maybe I'm completely wrong though.  How can I judge Shy's feelings?  Maybe she keeps in all bundled up inside.  Maybe she saves up her pains and anxieties to share with Mac (Mac, right?), back in 5.

         8 girl doesn't go for her knife first.  She picks up 5 girl's glasses.  They're not broken, but they are smudged.  She wipes them off with the edge of her shirt, kneels down, and put them back on the dead girl's face.  It looks like she's saying something and I strain to hear her, lifting my headphones away from one ear, but there are too many competing sounds in the room and the volume of the master screen is kept low.  If anyone can understand what she's saying, it can only be Pal.

         The pressure of the combined curiosity in the room gets through to him.  "…She's not actually saying anything," he speaks up, eyes still down on his own screen, "She's just mouthing it to herself."

         "Do you know what she's saying then?" Hector asks.

         "Something we say back home.  At funerals."

         I can understand that.

         The girl picks up her knife, frowning at all the blood on it, wipes it halfheartedly against her pants, then sticks it in her backpack.

         I look back at my screen, where Salvador is climbing down one of those spiky trees and getting the leg of his pants snagged on the thorns.  He mutters a mild curse and a trickle of blood runs down his calf until it's stopped by the fabric of his sock.

         The general attention of the watching mentors (and coach- there's still a coach around for 11) begins to divide.  The fight is over and there are still twelve tributes out there.  Maybe nothing will happen for a while.  The 2s could've caught up to their prey if they wanted to, but for some reason they're taking it slow.  If the girl from 6 knew about it this dragging things out would strike me the wrong way, but they're not purposely torturing her or anything.  They're thinking on it for some reason, following, but slowly.

         Then again, maybe something will happen immediately.  On an individual tribute-by-tribute level, there's always something happening anyway.  Even if it's really boring.

         Fear and boredom and the endless unknown.  The Games are a microcosm of life in Panem.

         Salvador's scrape stops bleeding.  He touches a finger to his tongue and rubs some spit on it.  He still has water in his canteen, but he doesn't want to use it for this if he doesn't have to, I suppose.  As far as I know, he's out of food again as of this morning.  I have to think about what I can and should do to take care of him on that front.  There has been sponsor activity and interest in him, which surged up around the time of yesterday's official broadcast and continued on today through his swimming session today.  I think it's from a combination of factors- Salvador's own personal charm, leftover interest in District 4 from me and my win last year, and his killing the 3 boy.  As the field narrows, will sponsors be easier to come by?  So far that seems to hold true.  There will be less tributes to compete for viewer attention, but the interested parties might be all spent out by then (or still drawn to someone else).

         "Ohhh, she's so skinny," Hector says.  He doesn't mean his girl.  She's pretty well-fed-looking as far as tributes go.  This isn't saying a lot, but there hasn't been enough time for any tribute to drop a significant amount of weight yet, so he wouldn't be making that sort of exclamation about the tribute he knows best.

         It's Pal's girl.  She's gone back to the lake at the Cornucopia, making me glad now that Salvador left it (though maybe if he'd been there she wouldn't have approached- she found that creek earlier after all) which has shriveled somewhat since the beginning of the Games and is crouched among the cattails, dunking her shirt in the water and trying to rub the blood and grime out of it with her hands.  And Hector's right.  She's very skinny.  There is nothing attractive about how visible her ribs are, but the thinness of her waist does catch the eye in a more ambiguous manner.

         Blood has soaked through her shirt to the layer beneath as well.  She spreads her wet shirt over a rock and peels off her bra, leaving her completely bare from the waist up.  I catch sight of Hector very deliberately averting his eyes before he sits back down.  I understand not wanting to have dried blood against your skin and I know you aren't aware of where the cameras are watching you from, but little girl, be more discreet.  Oh, I wish you would.

         I can't stop grimacing as she takes off her socks and shoes, rolls her pants up to her knees and wades into the water.  She has left her knife behind in her backpack.  She's so vulnerable right now.  I am more worried for her at this moment than Salvador.

         …But the moment passes.  No one attacks her, no one even goes by.  She goes back and sits on the shore to dry off, which will happen fast enough under the harsh sunlight that's continued to batter the arena.

         The heat of the afternoon is bothering Salvador.  He's taken his few supplies out of his pack and turned the open bag upside down, sticking it over his head.  This greatly restricts his peripheral vision, so I'm not sure it's a good idea, but it does seem to provide the relief from the sun that he desires.  He seems to consider throwing away the roots he dug up, holding one and raising his hand over his head, but then thinks better of it- who knows who might hear or see?- and simply leaves them on the ground.  He goes and lies down in a ditch, holding his hatchet and his canteen, which, I suppose, prevents a back attack.

         I wonder what he's thinking about.  I mean, I know I thought about a lot of total nonsense during my Games, mixed in with all the worrying and bad strategy.

         …I am such a bad mentor.

         I flip through the digital supply catalogue showing suggested items to send tributes (though you can search up all kinds of more obscure things by typing them in) and prices.  I don't think there's much, if any, food to find in this arena- if any other tribute has found some I haven't seen or heard about it, so if Salvador is going to get today, he's going to have to get it off another tribute again (and I hate to think of that) or from me.  Bread from home, dried fruit, beef jerky, all kinds of canned food products, all the way up to things like fresh fruit and candy.  Things that can help your tribute; things that will put on a show.

         "Look," Shy leans over and touches my arm, pointing at the big screen.

         Pal has sent his girl a gift (she has her bra back on, but her shirt is still drying).  Even the way the items are packaged speaks of Pal's particular character, but in this case, the arrangement also speaks to the amount of sponsor money he has to have received on his tribute's behalf because that pink tissue paper and gold string will have cost him extra.  I don't think Pal Fields has poor judgment.  I think he has that much to spare.

         The girl unwraps the package very carefully.  There's a message on a notecard, but she cups it in her hands and keeps it from the camera (this one at least, some other view might have seen it), smiling slightly at whatever words Pal has sent her.  After reading it, she folds it up and tucks it in the pocket of her pants.

         There are three small items wrapped in the tissue paper: a single cherry, a piece of that super flat 8 bread, and a tube of sunscreen.  "Thank you, Pal," she says.  She looks so happy.  "Thank you, everyone," she adds.  It's certainly the diplomatic thing to say.

         If it's her bare skin that the camera is after, whoever is in charge of editing the program will be happy for the unintended show she gives it, squeezing out that sunscreen cream and rubbing it on her sun-pinked face, arms, and chest.

         "Good gears," Shy sighs (my face quirks into a smile almost despite myself- it's a funny expression), "I've gotta get Coy some of that."  I don't think he's burning so much now that he's got dirt all over his face as, um, camouflage, but it wouldn't hurt.  …or maybe she thinks he will make a good show of that sort of gift?

         That's an element of mentorship I haven't been giving as much thought to as I should, especially in light of my haphazard showmanship of joking around in the lead up to my own Games and while on television with Jack.  The ability to create a "good show" involving your tributes even once they're in the arena and are even less under your control.  I don't know about Shy, but I don't have funds to play around with.  I have to be careful.  Unless some unexpected trouble arises today that requires medicine or bandages or something, the next thing I plan on sending Salvador is food.

         …But it could be entertaining food?  I mean, I want to be practical, but you can be fun and practical at the same time, right?  Sometimes?  Depending on the circumstances?

         I wish that Kayta hadn't left to pursue his own schedule- he hasn't been back after his episode of tantalizing us with his soup.  If he were here, I know I could ask him questions without distracting anyone from their own mentoring experience.  I don't think he'd mind.  …I don't think Emmy would mind either, but I'm not sure she'd be much help.  I'm sort of relieved that she's gone, actually.  When she verges on hysterical, as much as I want to help, I have no idea what to do.  It's very uncomfortable.  For her too, probably.

         Shy likes to help.  She likes to talk in general.  I just don't feel comfortable asking her anything else for a while.

         As far as I can tell, 11 and 12's coaches have only talked to each other.  Not really doing their tributes any favors there I think.  11's coach is wearing rhinestone-studded sunglasses inside for whatever reason and looks ridiculous watching his screen through them, but it has little to do with me.  I feel sorry for the 11 boy.

         The only thing I observe him- Harvest, he's the one with the pretty name- doing that day is killing a snake and trying to decide whether or not it would be safe to eat.  Since he doesn't even have the means to make a fire ("Unless I could pull the rubbing two sticks together trick," he muses), he chooses against it.  I feel bad because I know the 2s had no problem with their snake meal.  Of course, I don't know if this is the same kind of snake.

         It's a slow afternoon.  Aulie brings me lunch to eat at my station.  It seems wrong to get bored of all things, but there's a weird sort of limbo you fall into while watching your tribute wander about doing nothing in particular, aware that most of the other tributes are also doing nothing in particular and don't pose a particularly immediate danger.

         This goes on until the 2s, who are playing the most aggressive game out of the entire field (this seems to make sense in light of Hector and Gerik's personalities- at least, it seems like what Hector and Gerik would advise them to do) amp up their quiet stalking through an even thicker section of tall grass.  They're close to their target.  The camera does a good job of not showing who they're catching up to, though all of us are aware at this point that it's the girl from 6.  Sometime between now and Jack's settling him down there, Teejay has fallen asleep.

         The 2 boy leads the hunt.  Aside from being a volunteer- like I was, not for a family member- the 2 boy is pretty boring, the girl has all the charm for 2 in her corner, so it's probably in his best interests not to drag things out and give viewers too much time to get attached to weaker but more charming tributes.

         The 2 girl hasn't shied from violence, but she seems more troubled by it than her counterpart.  I'm not really in the position to judge their skills, but when her blue-gray eyes catch the camera and narrow with concern, she becomes a rather compelling character.  She is probably the 2 to beat.

         When the gap is close, the 2 girl springs forward upon her prey.

         The 6 girl is an easy kill for the 2 girl, considering she's weak with dehydration.  Though Sunny has been busy all this time since we saw the hunt began, she hasn't been able to buy anything to turn the tables for her girl.  After watching the girl wander around, slow and dizzy, for the past day, before sitting down beneath a leafless tree in a barely sheltered position, it's almost a relief.  Sunny bursts into tears and pounds her fists on her console.  "Missy!  Missy!  Missy!" she shrills.

         Teejay, sleeping on a couch, lifts his head and looks this way and that, but his gaze never settles on Sunny in any way that indicates he understands what she's so upset about.  I can't say that's not for the best considering how bothered he was at the outset of this event, calling Sunny "Rae" and all that.

         "Pardon me," the door opens.  Some junior Gamemaker flunky interrupts the proceedings at this point to retrieve Jack.  He stops briefly to look at Sunny, whose outburst seems to be having an uncomfortable effect on him.  Pal doesn't look away from whatever his girl is doing (although I've taken some breaks, I think I've only seen him look away twice so far- he may have left for a little while that first night, but I'm not sure he's even been sleeping), but holds out a handkerchief in Sunny's general direction, which she accepts to blow her running nose.

         "I'm kind of busy here, Jareth," Jack holds a hand up between his mouth and his headset (I think he's in the process of courting some sort of sponsor).

         "I can wait until you finish that call, but Mr. Bronze and Mr. Zimmer are holding for you right now, Jack," the man, Jareth apparently, frets.

         "Fine," Jack sighs.

         Onscreen in front of me, Salvador is chewing on a blade of grass.  He rubs his stomach, which gurgles unhappily.  "What I wouldn't give for something to eat.  …Not even a meal, just a snack.  A piece of fish jerky…a bread crust…I'd eat a lemon!"

         I can picture some Capitol citizen giving in to an off-kilter sense of humor and paying in to send a lemon his way.  …I suppose it would provide some sort of entertainment value, because I don't doubt Salvador would at least attempt to consume it, but it wouldn't do much to solve his nutritional dilemma.

         It's great that he's reaching out on his own in a way, but this is ultimately my job.  I have to feed Salvador.  …And, actually, as I consider how he's trying to be funny about his predicament, it occurs to me that I might now of _someone_ who'd be interested in providing for him.  I call into the sponsorship phone line with a question for the operators: "Who would I contact to find out if Crispco Crackers was interested in sponsoring my tribute?  And can you get me their number?"

         "We'll connect you directly to Crispco Public Relations Division, miss," the male operator informs me.

         "O-oh."  Easy as that.  "Thank you."  The phone makes some noises.  I take a deep breath.  I vaguely notice as Jack walks out of the mentoring room behind me.  There are some noises on the line.  Sunny sits down with Teejay and tries to explain to him what's happened to their last tribute.  The phone connects.  "H-hello," I say, while a man says the same at roughly the same time.

         He laughs and I pause to let him speak.  "Hello?" he repeats himself, "Mags Gaudet?"

         "Yes," I nod, although he can't see it.

         "…You're calling regarding a sponsorship?"

         "Yeah, I was wondering, um, if Crispco would have any interest in putting any funds toward feeding Salvador Chavez?  Because your product made a huge difference toward my own survival last year and I'd be honored if you would see fit to feed a District Four tribute again this year.  Salvador and I would both be so grateful and it would be another noteworthy way of advertising your crackers, uh…"  The wind behind my sails weakens as I try to figure out what I should say to appeal to this man.  …I suppose what I've said can't do any harm, but it might not work either.  "I would definitely be willing to try and endorse your product in whatever way possible."

         My pitch, weak as it might be, does its job.

         Crispco awards me the largest single donation I've received.  Maybe they were only waiting for this sort of opportunity to be presented to them.  That might make sense in light of their crackers appearing within the default supplies last year- with their brand-name on them even.

         I thank the Crispco representative an excessive amount of times because I feel I've truly lucked out more than I deserve having so little trouble acquiring such a significant gift.  Finishing up with him, I go right back to sponsor gift menu and find the exact order he promised to give already keyed into the menu, I select it and the operator comes on to take my order.

         "Is there any message?" the operator asks.

         "Oh, right…"  I had forgotten that I could write anything to go along with the item, although the maximum word count for messages is small and there's an entire list of subjects that can't be brought up (I can't give out information about the whereabouts of other tributes, for instance, at least not directly- maybe if you had some kind of code worked out in advance).  "'Thank Crispco'," I decide, "Write to him 'Thank Crispco.'"  I will hope that the company feels that by doing so they've gotten their money's worth.  If the sponsor system is going to become a permanent part of the Games, it is in my best interests to cultivate good relationships with whoever is willing to put money towards my district.  Hopefully with Crispco (via the luck of Sparrow's supplies last year, really), I've scored big not only for this year, but for many years to come.

         Many years.  Years that I can hardly imagine.  I've never been good at thinking too far into the future.  The operator tells me that my message has been approved and the item is being processed as he speaks.  The weight of the years to come confronts me.  There is nothing comfortable or easy about it.

        

         Salvador sees the package floating down toward him attached to a parachute and hastily scrambles partway up a dead, dry tree to grab if from the air.  "Oooh, yes," he declares when he realizes what it is, " _Se bueno_!"  He leans back against the tree trunk and clutches the package of crackers (it's not a big tin like Sparrow shared with me- it's probably about half that amount) to his chest.  "Thank you, Mags!"

         I wait, hoping he'll follow through with my instructions in the note.  "Thank you, Crispco Crackers!"  He does, his Down-District accent getting thick on the name "Crispco" and bringing a certain back home charm to the name.

         He remains balanced in the tree.  He rips open the package and shows what I would consider great restraint by eating only two large crackers.

         He drinks a little water.

         The sun is beginning to sink.  Salvador looks out at the roving silhouettes of two tributes walking together between his position and the falling sun.  It's the 2s or the 9s, probably, because as far as I know, they're the only tributes left who've stuck together in pairs (the 1s might still be together, but I'm not sure- there's tension between them and I haven't noticed them onscreen for a while- they echo Jack's ambiguity).  Whoever they are, Salvador makes a rude gesture at them, which I would usually chide him for if we were together, but in this context just makes me laugh.  Shy leans over to see if she can figure out what's so amusing to me.

         "If nothing preferable was happening, it might make the recap," I tell her, "But he's just being snotty."

         "Well, whatever the reason, it's good to hear you laugh in here," Shy responds, turning back to Coy, her remaining tribute.

         Because the other tributes don't see Salvador, his action makes for little danger, but decent television.

 

         Night comes in the arena and the two casualties, the girls from 5 and 6 are noted for the final time.  6 joins 7, 10, and 12 as the districts whose prospects have been ended.  Sunny departs, probably permanently (though when I mention it, Hector suggests that she might come back at the end- a lot of them prefer to watch the final showdowns together to ease the tension, apparently), leaving behind Teejay after he falls to respond to her repeated entreaties for him to wake up, get up, and go back to their quarters.

         Jack returns, but dawdles, looking up at the big screen instead of returning immediately to his tributes as the two hour long recap begins to play.  "We're down to half already," he notes, moments before Mr. Zimmer informs the viewers of the exact same thing.

         Neither of the day's deaths are considered particularly "interesting" to the hosts, but the possible fractures in the alliance between the 1s are another matter, as is the way 5's Coy has delved deep into the art of haphazard camouflage.

         It turns out the tributes Salvador heckled were the 9s.  The moment after this sequence plays (and Mr. Zimmer enjoys it very much), Luna stands up over her station and shoots me a look that, if it took physical form, could probably slice me like a barber's razor through a stick of butter.  I never intended for it be like this, but what can I do?  I may never have a chance for friendship with District 9- not their victors at least.

         Some of the victors talk over the recap a bit- that the 11 boy has done a good job sticking it out.  Gerik and Hector are slightly worked up over the idea of another two district Final Four matchup.  And it's certainly not 9's pair of tributes they're thinking about.  The 1s versus the 2s.  It could happen, but, of course, in my position, I have someone else to be rooting for.  My feelings are for Salvador though, not actively against anyone else.

         I hate the Games.  I hate the death.  I hate the killing.

         On my screen, Salvador is trying to eat another cracker in the slowest manner possible, taking the tiniest of bites.

         The settling of a hand shifts my seat.  I tense up for a second, but it turns out it's just Jack standing behind me.  I look up at him.  "You don't mind?" he inquires.

         Well, I don't think he's standing here to watch Salvador nibble and thereby learn something he can somehow convey to his tributes to use against him.  "It's okay," I tell him.

         The tips of his fingers, laid over the top of the chair, brush against the back of my shoulder.

         "You were gone a long time," I comment.

         "First was some filming.  Then there was something sponsor-related I had to work out."

         "You're going to stay now, right?" I look back at him.  His expression has a typical lightness to it, masking whatever else might be filling his thoughts.  "I'm going to take my break.  Swap with my friend."

         "You've got some good support here, don't you?"

         "I'm lucky.  I guess I'm a bit like Emmy in that I like my district escort, but I also get along very well with my coach, Mr. Strong, so he stayed on with us as my designated speller and, uh, all around help I suppose.  He's a better coach than I am."

         "Better is relative," Jack says.

         What's he getting at?  "I would help you, if I could," I tell him, "…If you needed it."

         "You've helped plenty already."

         "M-maybe," I dare, "Maybe it's time for you to help me then."

         The suggestion catches fire in his widening green eyes.  "Maybe it is."

         I remember the money he sent to District 4's account then and get embarrassed, but I feel even more awkward about speaking up and taking back the joking request for help, so I stay quiet.

         Aulie comes in to meet me.  "Hello, Jack," he nods.

         "Always good to work alongside you, Aulus," Jack replies.  It makes sense that they would know each other a bit further than merely through me, but I never noticed a sign of it before.

         "Go have some dinner," Aulie plucks the headset off my head, "You deserve it."

         "Yes, boss," I acquiesce.

         Jack walks with me to the door.  "Goodnight, Mags."  I am dismissed.

        

 

         I'm not back yet when the boy from 11 dies.  It happened in the early morning.  He was rooting around and chose a bad hole to stick his arm into.  He was bitten by a snake.  His coach didn't have the money to send him an antivenom.  He suffered a painful death all alone.

         I am not disappointed to have missed it.  "It was a bad one," Kayta tells me, shaking his head.

         "Came back to watch with us?"

         "For a little bit.  It's one of those things, you know?  I hate to watch it with you and I hate to watch it alone."  He scuffs his boot on the ground.  "I really miss Raisin at times like these."

         "I can imagine."

         "Well," we break apart, me to my station and Kayta to the couch in the back, "Good luck with your boy."

         "Thanks."

 

         It's a slow day until about four in the afternoon.  Salvador is dozing in another space he's cut out of a thorn bush to conserve energy during the hottest part of the day.  The girl from 3 makes one of her tiny ventures out from her amazingly great hiding place in one of the dead trees.

         I am not watching the 9s when it begins, but apparently it starts with an argument about their water.  The girl is thirsty, the boy tells her she wants to drink too much.  She pouts and turns away from him, crouching down in the grass.  She finds some bluish flowers.  "Huh," she says, "Go figure.  Look, Tim.  Forget-me-nots."

         Tim doesn't look at the flowers.  He has the piece he had torn off his jacket and been wearing like a bandana over his close-cropped head wrapped over his fists and stretched tight between them.  He tackles his partner to the ground.

         This, in a cloud of dust and surprise and crushed grasses, is where I start watching (Shy fills me in on the lead-up and the recap will certainly feature and confirm the details later).  Tim is strangling his district partner- quite determinedly.

         I am gaping.  I look around to see the reactions of my fellow victors and many of them are gaping too.  There aren't many inter-district killings- the odds just don't require it- and there are even fewer prior to the final eight.  "Damn," Hector speaks for, presumably, many of us, "Didn't see that coming."

         Tim Hazel has suddenly become a tribute to watch.

         The girl fights hard, but Tim's just too strong with that element of surprise on his side.

         Afterward, he's worn out by the effort he's expended and sits, breathing heavily as the canon fires and his partner's body is taken away.  I don't dare even look at Luna to try and guess what she might be thinking- I would be lying if I said she didn't scare me.  But I know that some of the others, less timid, are eying her- Kayta and Jack and Gerik.

         "…They're gonna want to interview you about that," Jack breaks the ice surrounding her with a reasonable sort of remark/warning.

         "Well, I certainly didn't tell him to do that," Luna answers.  Her voice sounds…brittle.  "I just hope he can commit to that decision he's made."

         "Gamemakers have gotta love that," Hector sniffs.

         At least there won't be any need for them to force any action after that.  I doubt anyone watching was expecting it.  I am inclined to guess it will be a quiet rest of the evening up to and through the anthem and into the night, barring accidents.  No one is right upon anyone else's current location.  The 1s are together, the 2s are together, the 3 girl is in her tree, Coy Eastman is camouflaged, Salvador and Pal's girl are both lying low in different dips in the ground (this is sure some rough terrain when it comes to small hills and rises- there are lots of places to sprain an ankle), and 9's Tim Hazel is just sitting out in the open.  He's probably full of adrenaline right now and not afraid of anything.

         I wonder what he was thinking.  Why he decided at that very moment to kill her.  Was it a sudden thing or planned out long in advance?  …Even if he wins, I may never know the truth (though if he wins, Mr. Zimmer will certainly ask him).

         Salvador has that bored look on his face again.

         I can hear crickets in the arena through my headset.

         I keep on hearing the crickets.

         Salvador keeps on looking bored.

         He yawns.

         Elsewhere in the arena at this exact same moment, the boy from 1 kicks his counterpart in the back of the knee.  She falls and he smashes her head with his makeshift mace.  Once.  Twice.  Thrice.

         Wherever they are, it's far enough away that Salvador doesn't hear her scream.  And scream.  And choke and whimper and gasp and then fall silent.

         Jack sucks in a stiff breath, which whistles slightly between his teeth.

         "I imagine you didn't tell him to do that either," Luna says, flat and cold.

         The cannon counts the girl.

         The commentators must be going wild.

         And that's it.  We have our final eight.


	10. Part II, Chapter V

         I watch the family interviews spread throughout recut footage of each remaining tribute- recaps of the potential winners, I suppose- even though I know it's only going to hurt me.  The only ones I should be paying attention to are the ones concerning Salvador.  As far as I can tell, the interviews never hurt anyone.  They can only help.  It makes me think about Jack.  It's stories.  These are main components of the Games: killing and stories.  …Though Jack hasn't seemed nearly as interesting in building up narratives about his tributes as I would've expected, now that I pause to consider it.  Not for the girl he just lost or the boy he's still got.  …Can he not do it for other people, despite having and being able to articulate the concept?  …am I just not understanding his process?  It's hard to say.

         Even as I watch the tributes' parents and siblings and friends in the districts speak, I try to let them blur together (and succeed, or do I fail?).  "Mica is the bravest person I know," says a brown-eyed girl in 2, the sister of Hector's tribute.

         "I can't wait for my son to come back home and run the shop alongside me again," says Mr. Eastman, the father of Coy from 5.

         "She is my baby," the mother of the girl from 3 gets a bit choked up, "She's always been my favorite."  ("Mom!" the girl's brother gasps with annoyance or surprise- will that be more awkward now if she wins or if she dies?)

         9's Tim Hazel has a pretty scary-looking dad (it's his eyes?  his huge, muscular arms and crazy side whiskers?  the combination) and school friends to speak for him.  The dad applauds his turning on his partner girl, which isn't going to win either of them any more friends back home, I think, but it's not something for me to waste much concern lingering on.

         Neither the 2 boy or the 8 girl have any family members, but the Dorm Mother from the home where the girl lives speaks to her sweet and gentle nature (the reporter talking to her seems kind of bemused) and some of the girls who live and work with her talk about how she's clever and good with her hands and because she was so tiny she'd have to go under the machines sometimes to fix things (they remind me of Pal's sisters- maybe there's something of this to all the factory girls in 8- and, if I see her and think of girls I never knew, how does she make Pal feel?  No wonder he is working so thoroughly (and desperately?) for her).

         A teacher speaks glowingly about the boy from 2 and friends cheer for him, "Just like everyone does when we play 'Rockwall Ball.'"  It looks like a pretty fun game from their demonstration.

         …I am too easy of a sell.  I like everyone (well, I have mixed feelings about the boys from 1 and 9, but I still don't want to see them killed).  I hate the Games.

         Salvador's mother talks about what a determined boy her Salvador is.  How he works hard around the house.  What a good son he is.  How proud she is that he's made it his far.  Then, she turns the knife as far as I'm concerned.  She tells how he idolized me since my win.  How happy he was that I let him and some of the other interested kids come and spend time around my fancy new house and hang out with me.  How she trusts me to bring her son home.  "I believe in both of them.  In Salvador and Mags," she clasps her hands and stares earnestly into the camera.

         His grandmother, fortunately, isn't as painful for me to hear.  It's more of a generic agony.  I think of Mayor Current, his wife, his son- all of whom would've been there to speak about Shaya if she had made it this far, but instead had to see her die within the Games' first few minutes.  The only possible upside to that outcome could be that the suspense didn't last long.  They could move fast from fear into grief.

         Che and Rodrigo seem pleased to be on camera, just as they were before at the beginning of my Victory Tour.  Che does an impromptu re-enactment of Salvador receiving the Crispco crackers.  " _Se bueno!_ " Che and Rodrigo exclaim in unison and laugh.  They really are good to be able to stifle their concern for their close friend so much.

         "It means, uh, 'that's great,'" Rodrigo explains to the reporter.  "There's a lot of extra-English slang Down-District."  The term 'Down-District' is just as new to the purple-haired reporter, but it's just a generalized way of indicating the more southwestern part of 4 as opposed to 'Up-District,' the northeastern section (the main town, in the middle, is the dividing point), so it's not too hard for her understand.

         "Are you 'Up-District' then?" this prompts Shy, also watching while keeping one eye on her still-sleeping tribute.

         "No," I shake my head, "I'm from the main town.  …There aren't really all that many people who are 'Up-District.'  That's glades and stuff mostly."

         The mentoring room is quiet and only getting quieter.  Mentors still 'in the running' as it were are taking turns heading out for final eight-related interviews about their tributes.  Most of the victors, like Kayta, who have stuck around in a 'just watching' capacity aren't here with us yet (and nothing's happening, so they might as well sleep- the only tribute who's even awake is the 9 boy and he's just sharpening a stick against a rock).

         Hector has just returned from his interview, swapping off with Gerik, to watch theirs, the final district pair, alone until his partner gets back.  Jack is still gone and a listless Capitol woman with smudged eye makeup is sitting at his station flipping through a fashion magazine while his tribute sleeps in a tree with his mouth open.  No one else spends half as much time away from their tributes as Jack.

         So, right now, there's Hector, Shy, Luna, Beto, Pal, Jack's Capitol speller, and me.  Pal, as usual, is talking quietly into his headset.  Shy has taken off her shoes- they're yellow, I notice, and sitting underneath her chair.

         "I was thinking of calling for coffee," Hector stands up and speaks so as to attract all of our attention, "So if you want anything, now's probably a good time."

         "Coffee'll do," Luna says.  I feel like I haven't heard her speak in days.  She's not much for extraneous comments.

         "Thank you, Hector," Shy favors him with a cute smile, "I will have lemon tea and a croissant sandwich."

         "Picky, picky," he jots down her order.

         I have a feeling it would be good to prevail upon Hector's generosity.  "I'll have a glass of milk."  I don't think I can stand anymore coffee, at least not for several hours.  I'm not used to drinking so much of it.  It turns my stomach.

         "I am already appropriately outfitted," Beto gestures to whatever food or drink he already has at his station but I can't see from this angle.  "…Thank you anyway," he appends after a pause.

         There's a long silence.

         "Paaaaaal?" Hector queries.

         "I don't think I can eat," he murmurs.

         "Oooh-kay," Hector takes that as a no and steps aside to ring an Avox attendant.

         I check briefly on Salvador- still sleeping although a light drizzle has started- then get up on my knees on my chair to look over the top of the partitions and address Pal.  "You don't look so good.  Have you been up a long time?"

         "As far as I can tell, he's been here all night," Gerik answers, reentering the room.  "You're up, Bet'," he signals the victor from 3.

         As if Pal hasn't already been operating on a minimum of rest since the Games began.  This can't be good for him.  "Have you really?" I query, brow creasing.

         "I can't sleep under these circumstances anyway," he gives a sorry little shrug and his coat slips down one shoulder.

         "You could…at least lay down?" I struggle.  "Close your eyes for a while?"

         "Oh," he whispers, "But she…"

         "We'll call in your speller," Shy joins in, "You've got them for a reason, you know?  You're going to have to go interview about that girl of yours soon so you'll have to tear yourself away from your screen for a little while anyway."

         "Okay," Pal relents.  "A few minutes on the couch."  He goes and lays on the couch with his back turned to us, but he keeps his headset on until the designated speller arrives to take over for him.  I doubt he sleeps, but it's better than nothing.

         The pair of Avoxes who bring up the food we ordered (I can't help but like the straw in my glass of milk) are soon followed by Beto, returning.  "Mags," he pushes up his glasses and makes a polite motion toward the door.

         "…where do I…?" I start.

         "With me," Jack pokes his head in.

         "Ha!" I burst out, surprised.

         "Don't worry, he's been walking back and forth with everybody," Hector assures me, "He's not here to specifically mess with you."

         Like Beto, I don't feel I'll be gone so long as to need to call in Aulie to take over for me.  If the amount of time Hector, Gerik, and Beto each left is any indication, anything that happens that fast there's nothing I can do about anyway.

         "Good morning."  Jack walks along just about half a step ahead of me.

         "Hi."  I yawn.  It's a bit awkward.

         "Doing all right?"

         "Well, good," I decide, "All things considered."

         "That's good," he says.  "I think you're doing well too."

         The filming setup for interviewing mentors isn't far away.  So we don't have to leave for long, I suppose.  We probably wouldn't take very well to having to go all the way to the studio or something.  …I realize that the coherency of any potential argument I am trying to make is quite low.  Four days and the Games are wearing on me.

         "Just talk about your tribute," the man directing the mentor spots prompts me, "Say whatever you'd like.  We'll handle the matter of cutting it together into something good.  Anyway, in your case, we already know you work out well on TV."

         "Uh, thank you," I accept the compliment.

         Jack sits down on a stool behind the director (I don't think it's the director's, since don't they usually have chairs with their names on them?) and holds up his hands, extending his pointer fingers and thumbs to frame me with them in a clichéd portrayal of some film person.

         "My remaining tribute is Salvador Chavez," I begin.  I tell that how he is fun to be around- how he was always a lively part of my post-victory group back home, how he considered volunteering but didn't end up needing to protect anyone that way (I won't say how I think he wouldn't have done it anyway), how much he admires Aulie.  I figure a liking for a Capitol citizen could never go wrong in the eyes of the most instrumental part of our viewership- if it makes people back home unhappy, well, they're not the ones who have the potential to sell him the tools of survival- they can complain to me when I bring him home alive.

         "Say how great it would be if he won because there's never been back-to-back same district victors," Jack interrupts a moment of thought on my part, "Say 'Let's make District Four the first.'"

         Can I be blamed for finding this strange?  "Do you want that?" I ask.  "You say it."

         I can't do that," he answers, not that it's not what he wants.

         "If the two of you sold a tribute together, that kid would win," the cameraman speaks his mind.

         "Mentor pairs are nice, huh?" the lighting woman sighs.

         The director forces us all back on track.  I can't bring myself to push the angle Jack suggested, even though it's good.  It's just…I don't feel right having not thought of it myself.  It isn't like Apple or Aulie told me to do it either.  Jack still has his own stake in these Games.

         I head back to send Shy in for her turn.  Jack follows along with me.  "I like your t-shirt," he says.

         It has a smiling cartoon fish on it.  "Apple bought it for me.  Thanks."

         "It suits you."

         I get the feeling he wants to say more.  I suppose Salvador is doing all right at the moment.  I wait.

         "I'm sorry.  I know that I haven't been, um, at my best lately."

         "I-it's okay."  What's he getting at?  "The Games aren't good for any of us, Jack."

         "No matter then," he looks down at me intently, "No matter how I seem during the Games- you and I will still be friends, right?"

         One of his tributes killed one of mine.  And he's still my friend.  What could he do related to the Games that could sabotage the odd bond that's developed between us?  "Jack," I aim for the utmost sincerity, "I don't think I could stop being friends with you now if I tried."

         He raises two fists over his heads in some sort of weird cheer and his smile reasserts itself along with them, "Oh, then, victory!"  He pauses and brings his hands back down.  "…I hope that however things turns out, you can be this happy too."

         "I think to be that happy I've gotta bring my tribute home," I counter, only half-joking.

         "If that's what it takes," he replies.

        

         No tributes die on the fifth day, though the pair from 2 engage in a rousing battle with a really creepy two-headed snake mutt that is probably going to recur in my nightmares sooner or later.  The boy is injured slightly, but the two of them are well supplied enough that they manage a makeshift bandage without difficulty.  He wasn't bitten anyway, just took a bad fall in the midst of the fray, so there are no worries about poison.

         They decide to take it easy for the rest of the day, assuming no one stumbles upon them, and the girl tells a story about her sister.  I find this side of her rather affecting.

         Salvador spends a lot of time in a tree eating crackers.  At one point the girl from 8 passes through his field of view and he definitely does see her, but he doesn't pursue her.  Both of them were similarly shaken, I think, by the single kill to their names.

         Pal sent her a strange camouflage blanket while I was away speaking about Salvador and she walks about with it over her head and sleeps.

         There's definitely a boost of interest for the 2s, as the only allied tributes remaining.  Having someone to talk to makes you more interesting.  They're also able to split their supplies.  Sure, this might make the food go faster, but they seem to get along well and their two mentors can work together, which Hector and Gerik are good at it.

         When Aulie comes back to swap places with me, he shows me (and Shy, butting in as has come to feel pretty much usual) a video clip of people on the street being asked their opinions about the various tributes.  Popularity for the 2s is quite high at the moment, though it leans toward the girl (if they split, I am sure it is with her that most allegiances will go).  The boy is benefitting from his alliance with her outside the arena as much or more than he is inside it.

         Salvador is dubbed, "cute," and "not as funny as Mags."  However, a young man picks him out as the tribute he could most imagine being friends with and I can't help but think that Salvador would probably like to be friends with someone like him too- back home he had lots of friends.

         The girls from 2 and 8 are ranked the most popular.  For reasons of stirring up fan agitation, I think the commentators purposely chose not to set one above the other, judging them "too closely ranked to tell."  It's probably also that they're drawing different kinds of attention.

         The girl from 3 and the boy from 5 trail everyone else at the bottom of the list.  The odds for 3's girl are particularly poor, I think, because she doesn't have a single kill to her name.  My non-aggressive endgame was weak enough.  The Gamemakers aren't going to give a default out to this girl in the tree if they can help it.  Sunny's default at least came with one earlier kill and the terror-fascination of her absolute breakdown.  The girl in the tree is too good at survival and not good enough at…unfortunately, playing the game.

         Fan fervor for Salvador falls into the middle, slightly higher than Jack and Luna's male tributes, but slightly lower than the 2 boy.  It's good enough.

        

         About noon on the sixth day there's a massive- well, as much as I want to call it a snag, this is the kind of thing that the Gamemakers like to see and the deaths are going to have to come somewhere, eventually.

         The boy from 5 suddenly leaps clear from a hiding place in some reeds upon seeing the boy from 9 pass by.  The 2s, thinking strategically, have continued their tactic of always retreating back to remain on higher ground when they don't have any goal in the lower reaches of the arena.  From here they can see the ruckus, though I don't think they know exactly what's happening.  …But why would that matter for them?  Other tributes are fighting and have revealed their locations to them.  It's a fine idea, really.  Let those two fight, whoever they are, then swoop in and finish off the winner while he or she is distracted and winded, if not out and out weakened and wounded.

         The 2s split apart.  The girl heads one way; the boy another.  A cautious sort of pincer movement.

         Salvador is attempting to sharp his hatchet on a rock.  Sparks fly up and make him nervous.  I can't blame him.  Fire would attract attention and as dry as it seems, just think how that arena would burn.

         …Of course, fire could be a weapon too, albeit a wild and unwieldy one.

         I look back up as the boy from 2 trips, making enough noise to alert his opponents to his imminent arrival.  They don't exactly make up and decide to double team the bigger boy- Shy's boy has suffered a stab that has him bleeding all over his careful camouflage and gasping for air- they do pause in their combat to see who's coming.  The boy from 9, Tim, wrenches the bow from the 5 boy's hand and kicks him to the ground, where he struggles to rise again, getting only as far as his knees.  The arrows from the 5 boy's quiver are spread throughout the reeds and reddish dirt.  Tim picks up an arrow, aims at the boy from 2, and hits him square in the shoulder.

         "Ouch!" Salvador draws my gaze back to its more proper place.  He's cut his finger.  He puts it in his mouth and sucks on it.  The cut didn't appear too deep, but fingers are sensitive.  I don't doubt that it hurts.

         Tim Hazel's second arrow goes wide.

         He startles at a cry from the 2 girl as she arrives from her more careful trek around the other side and his third shot takes the 2 boy in the foot.  "Looking for this, lawnmower?!" the 2 girl advances with scythe blade in hand, having not forgotten Tim's boast that a scythe would be the best weapon for him to take down the competition.

         "You can keep it," Tim growls and spits blood.  He turns and runs.  The 2 girl starts to take chase, then thinks better of it.  Her partner may not be dying, but he's injured and doubled over in pain.

         The boy from 5- Coy, that's right- kneels between them, but doesn't manage to stay on his knees for long.  He collapses onto his side.  My stomach turns at the sight of the blood he coughs up.  He raises one weak hand and gestures at the girl from 2 with two fingers.  She steps over him and doesn't lean close enough to put her face or neck within striking range from a last ditch attack ("Cancel it!" Shy is snapping into her headpiece at some unfortunate operator, "I said 'cancel it!'  It's too late now!  He's done for, imbecile!"), but she listens.

         Coy says something.  I can't hear it.  There's too much interference.  The main screen is still turned down too low.

         "What'd he say?!" he ask.

         "'Poison,'" Shy leans back to tell me.  Her headphones are ajar.  Her tribute is on the verge of death and she's given up.  "The arrows are poisoned."

         That must be why Coy's face is turning red instead of pale even as he loses all that blood.  Sweat runs down his brow.  The boy from 2 has crumpled to his knees.  The girl from 2 looks back and forth frantically between them.  "You heard him," she implores the sky- 2's mentors, "He needs an antidote."

         "Well, it also has to be the right one, girly," Shy mutters at her, "Give the men a minute."

         "Sore loser," Kayta quips at her from that same old spot on the couch.

         The 2 girl sits her district partner down and gets him to try and breathe calmly with his head between his knees.  The boy from 5's face is turning a hideous purplish hue.  Tears are mixing with his sweat.  "What a mess," the 2 girl sighs.  She picks up the discarded bow and one bent arrow.  It won't have to fly far.  "Don't look," she tells Coy.  "Close your eyes."

         I stop looking too, my stomach twisted into knots.  There's a thunk as the arrow hits home.  The firing of the cannon echoes it.

         "That's it," Shy takes off her headphones, "I'm done.  I'm gone.  I'm out."  She stops along the way to pat Hector on the shoulder and whisper something to him as 2's girl, Hector's tribute, jumps up into the air to speed the arrival of the poison's antidote to her partner.  For all the time Shy's spent interacting with me, at least from the outside it seems like she's throwing her allegiance to District 2.  I'm not exactly offended, but I don't understand it.

         The look she fixes on Luna before she goes though- that doesn't surprise me at all.  I don't even think Luna notices though.  She's got one rough and gutsy boy out there in Tim.  When he stops running and takes cover, she sends him a bandage and an ointment to disinfect the cuts he received.  He wasn't hurt by any of the arrows, I assume, since he doesn't seem to be suffering an ill effects from the poison.

         Hector's girl rushes to read the instructions accompanying the antidote and inject it into her partner.  He looks very pained and throws up the remains of his lunch.  The girl holds his hand.  "Come on," she says softly, over and over, "Come on, come on, work."

         Apparently it's not a sure thing.

         Salvador isn't interested in trying to sharpen his hatchet blade anymore after his finger has stopped bleeding.

         Whenever the screen above shows the tributes from 2 again, I don't get the sense that the boy has gotten any better.

         Salvador finishes his crackers while he watches the sun go down.  The boy from 1 eats cold beans and then kicks the empty can around for a while like he's playing a ball game all by himself.  Pal's girl works some tangles out of her hair.  Beto's girl goes on hiding.  She's uncomfortable with hunger.  She tries chewing on a piece of bark.

         The boy from 2 shakes and shivers.  His partner covers him up the best she can and tries to warm him.  She tries to get him to drink some water.  She re-bandages the injury on his foot.  Eventually she just sits down with him and waits.

         He dies in time to make that night's grouping of the fallen.  Just two.  The boy from 2, the boy from 5.  When Gerik gets up after the anthem, Jack rises as well and shakes his hand.  "See you again in the morning," he tells us.  2's not out of this yet.  The girl cries silent, weary tears over her partner.  She stands back to let the hovercraft take him.  "You didn't volunteer to die like that," she says.

         In a way, I feel like that could've been me.

 

         The seventh day of mentoring begins, for me, balancing a bowl of cereal in my lap as I watch Salvador do stretches.  "Oooh," he groans, "I'm so tired of sleeping on the ground."

         Two tributes appear to be actively on the hunt after getting themselves set for the morning- the girl from 2, who hacks aggressively at tall grass and reeds with her scythe as she goes, as if there were any doubt of which tribute in particular she's hoping to find, and the boy from 1 who has caught on to the fact that some of the other tributes are probably hiding- because he's not seeing anyone, and how big can the arena be anyway?- and is peering into whatever crevices or copses he thinks would make a good place to stay out of sight.  He inspects the area of thorn bushes Salvador cut into early on, but it doesn't give him any hints at to where he's gone at this point.

         Tim Hazel from 9 and Pal's girl, like Salvador, seem to move about simply as a way to deal with their ongoing uncertainty.

         They're all tired.  Salvador shuffles his feet through the dry dirt, raising bits of dust and sand.  He shouldn't have done it.  Though he tries to stifle the sound, it gives him a sneezing fit.

         I think about Mr. Zimmer asking me to comment on my tribute getting himself killed because he has sensitive sinuses.  …I must be tired too to be sidetracked into these sorts of negative fantasies.

         The sneezing does it though.  Tim Hazel and Salvador Chavez, face to face.  Though I hardly have time to worry.  It's kind of amazing.  I'm not sure if I should be happy or horrified.  Did I ever handle myself this well in the arena?  Somehow I doubt it.

         "To the victory!" Salvador shouts, swinging his axe.  It nips at Tim's arm, tearing into his flesh and sending blood spraying.

         He and Tim Hazel seem equals now in fearless disregard.  They're so close to that victory.  On my tongue, victory in the arena has the taste of iron and salt- blood and the sea.  Salvador avoids Tim's main strike, though he takes damage to his back on the return stroke.  It rattles him and shakes free some of the result of his nasal difficulties.  Blood soaks into the back of his shirt and he coughs up a hunk of phlegm onto his opponent.  "Ugh!"

         Salvador brings the axe down into Tim's skull.

         And the even more horrible-amazing part is that he doesn't just leave it there.  He is trembling, but not enough to stop him from pulling his weapon free- not so easy, as is sticks.

         Tim falls down, yelling, twitching, hands raised to his hideous wound.  Now the breaking point is reached.  It's too much for Salvador.  "Victory…" he murmurs, chiding himself, I think for his previous cheer.  He staggers backward several steps- not from his injury, which failing poison or infection, I can't see felling him- but from fear and dizziness and sickness with himself and what he sees.

         He starts mumbling to himself in what's, to me, a barely intelligible mix of phrases and fragments embroidered with an overabundance of Down-District Extra-English (his grandmother, I think, can almost still speak it as its own language).  He moves away from his felled fellow tribute, though not quickly, and he can't stop looking back at the violence that he's wrought.

         He must have a better sense of where he is in the arena than I do, because he heads back to the Cornucopia, which I think it what he means to do.  He is probably hoping to swim again, to cleanse himself of at least the outward signs of killing, but there's not a whole lots of water left.  Not enough to swim in.  He rolls his pants up to the knees and bares his weary feet.  He drops his axe into the mud and wades anxiously about in the water.

         When the cannon fires, he winces.

         Whatever response Luna has to this moment is restrained to her small mentoring space.  I don't hear or see anything.  She remains in place.

         I know I need to send Salvador something.  I have to reassure him that I'm still here for him- that there are still people thinking about him- that, no matter what the arena pushes him to do, he has to stay in touch with himself.  It should be something from back home.

         …It also wouldn't hurt him to have some kind of bandage to at least cover up that cut in his back.

         "We're here.  Be strong," is the message I send him with some nice Capitol-made bandage he can stick on, which is good, I figure, for an injury he can only turn and partially see, and a modest meal- an orange and a piece of dried fish.

         He tears up over them, but brings himself back from the edge, exhorting himself, "Don't cry, don't cry.  Don't waste water."

         Salvador eats his airdropped meal.  It wasn't paid for in Tim's blood and suddenly I wish I had indicated that to him somehow.  I can't say the funds I drew from were entirely related to killing, but this was paid for from the money Jack gave and Papa and other small donations pooled together from our district's Capitol fan club and the Chavez family and friends back home.

         For a long time after eating, Salvador just sits, thinking his own thoughts.  But eventually he begins to hum the tune of an old fishing boat song.  He does the best he can to clean his injury, grimacing as his fingers brush against it- it hurts a lot more now that the adrenaline from the fight has run its course.  He slaps on the bandage.  "Hold yourself together a little longer my pathetic, beat up body!" he commands himself.

         I'm glad to see him smile.

         He washes up further.  His face, his dirty feet, his axe.  "You can do this, Salvador," he tells himself.

 

         The searching of the boy from 1 yields results.  The girl from 3 makes his fourth kill.

         Beto takes off his glasses and rubs his hands all over his glum, tired face.  "I'm so sorry," I tell him, "It was a good plan."

         "A girl from Three has to return to us.  It will not make things right, but there is no other way to pay my debt.  I can't bring them back to life.  Even the Capitol cannot do that."

         "Esme Edison," he takes a serious-looking binder out of his bag and shows me a picture of the girl who just died.  It looks like a school picture.  She's smiling.  Her hair is curled like tiny springs.

         "Now I have mentored eight tributes who died.  Presumably the average life expectancy of a victor will prove greater than that of the average district citizen.  …In which case I can expect to carry on mentoring for…how many years?  I am twenty-one years old, so, sixty more years, perhaps?  In even the best case scenario, how many victors can District Three bring home?"

         "…And even when there are other victors from my district," I follow his line of thinking- if it is what I think it is, I agree with it, "How can I think of making anyone take my place?"

         Beto nods.  He puts his glasses back on.  "I'm still glad that I'm alive though," he adds.

         "I feel the same."

         He stays through the anthem and presentation of the fallen.  "And so to component materials," he says to Esme Edison's image.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?

         "Good night," Beto bids me nicely after packing up all his things.

         Luna leaves at about the same time without a word that I'm aware of to anyone.

         Aulie rings me up.  "Same time, same place?"

         "Uh, yeah.  I guess I'm ready."

         "Sal did really great today."

         "I can tell that you're proud of him."  It's obvious in Aulie's tone.

         "He's a good kid.  …Almost as good as you," he teases.

         "Aulus Strong, you go down there and relieve our dear victor so she can get her rest or we're not going to have anyone left to be proud of," Apple nags him, her voice rising shrill enough for even me to hear it over the phone.

         "I'll be right there.  …Apple bought you a cake to celebrate Final Four.  …You don't mind if I cut myself the first place to take down here with me?"

         "…I don't mind."  Of course I don't mind.  It feels tacky having to discuss it.

         "I told you she wouldn't mind," Aulie turns the words back around to Apple.  He laughs a bit.  "I'll see you in a minute."

         It turns out to be a coconut cake, white and covered in little shaved flakes.

         "What?" Hector addresses me when he sees it, "Celebrating already?  I think that's kind of premature, Miss Mags!"

         "My escort picked it out," I fuss, getting embarrassed at the idea that I might be seen to be acting in bad taste.  I like the other victors.  I want to stay on friendly terms with as many of them as I can.  "It's not supposed to be premature.  It's a 'Happy Final Four' cake."

         "Oh," Hector makes a face that reassures me that he's more just joking around (to relieve tension?) than he is offended by this affair, "So, how do I get some of this cake?  Because I also have a tribute in the Final Four."

         "I'll bring you some," I promise.  While Aulie looked willing to take on the task, I'd rather walk about and play waitress myself.  I look around the room.  I'm not sure extending the offer of cake to Shy or Kayta would go over all that well, considering their tributes have all been dead for at least a day, even if the cake is something they'd enjoy under other circumstances.

         Jack is gone and that Capitol woman has taken his place.  I don't know how long he's been away or when he might come back.  …If I'm sharing cake, I wish I could give a piece to him.

         "Pal," I walk around for a rare visit to the other set of mentoring station, "Would you like to have some cake?  I'm bringing it down here.  It's coconut."

         "Hmm, oh?  What?" he shakes himself from sort of dazed stupor, "Yes, thank you."  I see three empty cups at his station, all stained with coffee.  Another mug, with a spoon and teabag in it, has been drunk just halfway.  There are plastic containers with bits of greasy-looking noodles in them.  Pal has dark circles around his eyes and the tan, patched coat hanging over his shoulders looks very wrinkled.  There are several bandages on his hands.  Here Apple is, insisting that Aulie take over for the sake of my health, while Pal frets at his station day and night, a complete mess.  Who is his speller?  His escort?  It doesn't look seem like anyone is looking out for him.

         My brow furrows.  "Pal, are you okay?"

         "Well, I'm tired as all that, but if I weren't tired, I wouldn't be doing my job, would I?" he attempts some gentle humor.

         "Aren't you willing to take a break?  If you don't trust the appointed Capitol person to watch your girl, maybe one of us could do it for a while?" I suggest.

         "My girl," he echoes me, "My girl.  …Her name is Silk."

         "Yeah, I'm not that worn out," I press on, "After I bring back that cake I could watch her for a while and you could take a nap on the couch again.  O-or," I alter my tack, realizing that since Salvador is still in the game as well I might not be seen as able to be impartial enough, "We could ask Kayta or someone to do it.  I bet Kayta or Shy would do it."

         "I don't know," Pal hesitates.  "I don't…  I'll think about it."

         A four-way split screen displays the boy from 1 already sleeping and the other three tributes appraising various locations to settle down.  Silk yawns.

         "I'll go get that cake," I say.

         When Apple seems disappointed with me for taking two substantial slices away for Hector and Pal, I just ask if she were really planning on spoiling her attractive figure by eating so much herself and she immediately changes her tune.  "Can you handle all the doors while you're carrying those, dear?"

         "Don't worry, I'll manage."  It's not as if they're heavy and the elevator will let me in and out at the push of a button.

         The grin on Hector's face when I return is rather rewarding.  "This is what everyone likes you for, isn't it?" he jokes around, "Feeding them, Mags?"

         Feeding the people was part of it, I know.  The old God stories Papa told (he doesn't tell them as much anymore, though I doubt they're ever off his mind).  I don't know why it comes to me now.  I'm feeding people right now who aren't lacking for nourishment.  It's a mundane gesture.  Apple bought a cake too big for the three of us- Apple, Aulie, and me- and I am sharing it with my friends.  …But the evil of a government that won't feed all its people is equally mundane.

         "Your win must've fed people too," I reply.

         "Even in District Two, we were still starving then," Hector agrees.  He takes a big bite.  "This is very good cake."

         "It is," Pal agrees, "Thank you."

         "…About the substitute?" I remind him.

         "For a little while," he agrees.  Compared to Hector's grasping gulps, even the bites Pal takes seem sweet and dainty.  "…But only if Sunny will do it.  I think she'll watch most like I would," he explains.

         "How do I call the District Six floor?" I go around and ask Aulie.

         "Watch me work magic," he grins and taps in some unknown sequence of numbers, "Hello, have I reached the District Six Training Center Headquarters?" he practically purrs, raising his eyebrows in what I take to be a 'look at what a hotshot I am' expression.  "Oh, good.  Thank you.  Yes, this Aulus Strong calling on behalf of Mags Gaudet.  Is Ms. Lightfoot available to come to the phone?"

         He passes the headset over to me.  "Here you are.  Tasha's getting her."

         "Um, hello, Mags?" Sunny speaks to me.

         "Hi, Sunny.  Umm," my level of confidence is equally shaky, "How are you tonight?  Are you busy?  I was wondering if you could come down here and sit in for Pal for a little while.  I, uh, know it's not entirely orthodox, but he'd rather you do it than his speller."

         "Oh, uh, really?  Gee," she sounds surprised, "Well, I'll do it, but first I've got to change clothes…  Tell him I'm coming."

         Pal's glad to hear it.

         I wait for Sunny's arrival before heading back to Apple.  "If Jack shows up, should I tell him you have cake for him?" Hector quizzes me at the last moment.

         "Uh, I guess you can."

         I eat with Apple and our meal does consist of slightly more than coconut cake.  Part of me keeps wondering if Jack will show up- I set aside the last piece of cake for him just in case- but he never does.

 

         There are more interviews with friends, family, and mentors on the eighth day of the Games.  No one fights.  No one dies.  All four tributes are, I think, conserving their strength.

         Pal's girl- Silk- sunbathes, exposing much of her too thin body, but is never completely unprotected with knives in her hands.

         The prices of all the items having risen bit by bit this entire time, I have to spend a pretty painful amount of get Salvador more water, but I figure I'm running out of time and places to spend it and it's a necessity to keep him going through the final stretch of the Games.

         "I heard something about cake?" Jack whispers in my ear during yet another lull on my end, taking me completely by surprise and causing me to spit a considerable mouthful of some mixed fruit drink Aulie's gotten me hooked on all over my desk and control screen.

         "Wh-what are you-?!" I sputter, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, "G-go back and babysit your tribute, Jack!"

         The peanut gallery- currently comprised of Kayta, Shy, and Teejay- chuckle rather uproariously.  Gerik, taking his turn managing things for District 2, raises his hand politely, like he wants to be called on by a teacher, making it visible over the partitions between us.  "Mica may've been Hector's specifically, but my district's still in the running and I would be willing to accept that coconut cake in Jack's place."

         "You'd give it to him before me?"

         "Well," I awkwardly dab at the sticky mess with the edge of my t-shirt, "He is doing his job.  You're just making it more difficult for me to do mine."

         "I'll split it, Jack," Gerik compromises.

         On a certain level, I appreciate the levity.  I ring Apple and ask her to bring down the cake, as well as something for me to wipe up the wasted juice with.

         Jack and Gerik make Shy, an "impartial party," cut the slice of cake in half for them.  Apple squints at Salvador on my screen and implores him to, "Do something big while they're not looking!"

         Salvador doesn't manage to magically hear and carry out Apple's wishes.

         The fact that Pal takes two separate naps that day says it all.  The eighth day will be the last calm before the storm, I imagine.

         In my own Games it was different.  This time around, I have avoided learning the names (which worked, to a point - Ada, Petey, Sparrow, Haakon, Juna, Daisy, Beanpole, et cetera runs a sturdy counterpart of and counterpoint to my internal litany of sea saints).  But things are down to the wire now.  This is the Final Four.  One of these people I will get to meet afterward (or meet anew).  I'll get to know him or her.  For a long time, maybe.  They could be my friend.  They will be my colleague.

         Two boys, two girls.  …and one is mine.

         Three of the four of them are sleeping now.  Salvador is still stuffed up from the dust and grunts a bit in his sleep.  He's not too afraid of what he has to do.  He's come this far.  But-

         While they sleep (and the 2 girl bites her nails), Mr. Bronze and Mr. Zimmer and a groggy-looking Jack run some additional Final Four commentary on the main screen.  The family interviews are already done.  This is probably the last night they'll give them.  Come sunup, they're going to have to run, to kill, to die.  Tomorrow might not be the last day, but the end will begin then, like the Gamemakers in mine gradually turning up the rising of the water.  Faster and higher, until there was barely any ground left to stand (they left enough though when they could have drowned the whole arena- that was their only mercy- they wanted to have a victor).

         The girl from 2 is Mica Saffron.  She is sixteen.  There are ropes in her pack and a scythe and a hammer.  She's been scavenging.  She is Hector's tribute (and Gerik's by proxy now that the boy is dead).  According to Hector, she wants to be an architect.  Back home she was a masonry student.  She has a younger sister.  She has four kills to her name.

         The girl from 8 is Silk Sachet.  She is fourteen.  She looks like a nymph come out of the sea.  She has rope too and a camouflaged blanket, which is covering her from view as she sleeps.  She is Pal's tribute (and there is a rumor running that he never planned on doing anything for the boy from the moment he set eyes on her, but I can't help but think Pal is far too kind for that (while I know and never forget that he was not too kind to kill)).  He has bought her the blanket.  He has bought her other things too.  No one has spent nearly as much on their tribute (no one else, I think, has it to spend).  There are knives hidden under her clothes and they look sharp.  She has only killed once.  But the commentators, aside from Mr. Bronze, seem rather enthused by her anyway.  If a fourteen-year-old can win the Games, it could be her.

         The boy from 1 is Indiana Gold.  He is eighteen.  He's the reason that Jack Umber looks so miserable right now, I guess.  He plays it rather loose and easy while here in 'Mentor Central,' and has been called on more than anyone else to comment and be on camera, but as far actually switching places with a speller he takes the smallest breaks watching over Indiana that he can.  I assume he doesn't trust anyone else to do the job properly- that half of his attention is better than that of a Capitol citizen, which is hard to make sense of with his flightiness, pacing around the room and such.

         The mentors' headquarters has grown quieter and quieter as the Games have worn on.  Whenever he's there when I stand up from my station to switch with Aulie, Jack raises his head and looks at me over the top of his carrel.  On television he makes himself perfectly clear and understandable, but in person I find him a curious read.  I don't know what he's thinking when he looks at me at those times.  Indiana is a grappling type.  Good with his hands, good with his body.  He has a tiny switchblade.  Other than that, he's used more natural things as his weapons.  Rocks, the terrain, a nasty mace he cut himself from a branch, his body.  Four kills to his name.

         It's weird, because for all the attention that Jack gives him and all the efforts Jack has made overall to draw attention to the cause of District 1 and sell his tributes, I can't completely say I'm sure that Jack wants him to win.  I mean, I think he preferred Samantha- Sammy- the girl, but wouldn't he want it for Indiana in her stead?  Really, I get this strange feeling about it.  But it's not my business.  _I_ want the win.  I'm not going to question it now.

         The fourth is Salvador Chavez.  Mine.  Sleeping with his hatchet.  Sleeping despite the two kids he's killed.  I'm glad that he can though (he'll need it if he's going to have a chance to win).

         I lift my head to look around the room.  Jack isn't here- he's onscreen talking about his boy.  Hector is snoring in a chair.  Gerik is watching Mica sleep onscreen, stirring the dregs of his coffee around over and over.  Maybe the motion is what's keeping him awake.  I know the quiet, both here and in the arena, makes me drowsy, after this many days caught up in the maelstrom and watching the melee.

         Pal Fields is here too, looking, well, kind of freaky to tell the truth.  Sunny may have managed to clean up his station the other night while he took a break, but he still hasn't wracked up nearly enough sleep to make up for the way he's been treating himself throughout the Games.  If mentor dedication can save a tribute, that girl is going to win the Thirteenth Hunger Games.  Who knows how he's wracked up so much money to put towards her, but he has no problem spending it.

         It's not that the rest of us remaining aren't dedicated, but it's hard to match the somewhat unhinged intensity Pal seems to have reached.  There are empty mugs building back up around him already and junk food wrappers.  He has a patchwork blanket wrapped over his shoulders.  I am seriously considering the possibility that his wakefulness is powered at least in part by drugs.  …and even though his tribute is only sleeping, I have a feeling that he'd still be mad if I approached him now.

         I ring for Aulie.  "Can we swap?" I ask.  "I think they're going to give them a good six hours at least."

         "Oh, anytime, sweetie," Aulie assures me.

         He's there in about five minutes with traces of some kind of overnight skin treatment left like shaving cream on the corners of his face.  I thank him and tell him to call me when Salvador wakes up (or, at his discretion, if anything else occurs of note).  Hopefully Salvador and I will both make out with a decent amount of sleep.

         I drift off without bothering to shower.  I only manage to halfheartedly brush my teeth.  I can save that for the morning.

        

        

         Aulie's call wakes me four and half hours later.  "Mags," he sounds nervous, "Mica's up and hunting."

         I splash some water on my face, rush down in the same clothes I was wearing the other day, and come running into the control room in time to see Mica bearing down on Salvador's location.  The arena is still dark.  I'm led to assume she probably barely slept.  Those nerves (that nail-biting) got to her and she decided not to wait any longer.

         I have to do something.  I have to wake Salvador up.  Mica is too strong, too well equipped, too unhesitating.  Asleep he is a goner.

         I punch through to the sponsorship hotline while Aulie frets behind him.

         They tend to drop the items gently near the tributes, but I need something that will wake him.  Something, hopefully, not too obvious though, to bring Mica down on him if she hasn't found him already, before he has a chance to get a move on.

         It has to make noise when it hits the ground.  And he's exhausted, so I don't know how deeply he's sleeping.  It has to make enough noise to wake him up.

         "I want to send my tribute a maraca!" I tell the woman on the other end of the line.

         "A what?" she sounds beyond confused.  Aulie's puzzled noise from over my shoulder helps to cue me in.  It's too localized.  In the Capitol you'd have to be a music specialist or something to know it.

         "Can you send him a can full of rocks?"  I am getting frantic.  Looking back and forth between the two screens (mine and the large one above), I can see Mica drawing nearer and nearer to the unknowing Salvador.

         The woman sounds like she thinks I'm nuts, but she says that she can and names the price.  It's too weird to be a high list item, so our funds can easily cover it, but I feel like she couldn't possibly put the request through any sooner.  Someone's going to have to put those rocks in that can!  It's going to have to be dropped into the arena!  How far away is the arena from the item depot?  Salvador doesn't have time to waste!

         "Is there any message?" she asks.

         A message?!  A message at a time like this?!  I'm not allowed to pass him information about any of the other tributes anyway.

         "'Rise and shine!'" I shrill out, almost wishing I could snap the phone in two with my bare hands.

         "And…sent," the woman confirms, seemingly unperturbed by my frustrations.

        

        

         Aulie gasps.

         Mica is using her scythe to slit Salvador's throat as the can full of rocks hits the ground.

         The noise makes her jump, but only succeeds in causing her to make her cut sloppier.  "No!" I pound my fists against the console/desk as Salvador chokes and sputters in his own blood as he dies.  "No!"

         Aulie puts his hands on my shoulders.

 

         When Mica is sure- when the cannon fires- she picks up the can and reads the note attached to the outside.  The large screen shows it zoomed in enough for the typed message to be read.  "Someone needed a better alarm clock," Mica shakes her head.

         She opens the can, wondering, no doubt, what amazing thing was sent to save Salvador, and pours a handful of round pebbles onto the ground.  She shakes her head again.  She doesn't get it.  She's probably thinking something about crazy District 4.

 

         "Good show, Four," Hector Auric raises his hand over the top of his carrel and gives me a little salute.

         I can't muster more than a grunt in response.

         I leave the good-byes to Aulie as we head back to our quarters.  Jack Umber passes us quickly, almost without noticing us, on his way in.  His tribute could be next.

         I cry in the shower and then go back to bed.

         I sleep for four more hours, then reluctantly get dressed.  I lay on the couch watching the Thirteenth Hunger Games go on.  No one else died in the night.  Between Mica, Indiana, and Silk, there's a cautious tension, a sort of cat and mouse game, where everyone is simultaneously a cat and a mouse.

         My stupor is broken when Kayta Hiro calls.  "Sorry 'bout your tribute," he says, "Salvador.  …Do you want to have lunch?"

         I'm sad to say that this makes me feel a little better.  I haven't eaten any breakfast and Kayta sounds so sympathetic.

         "Sunny and Shy will be there too."

         "Okay," I agree, "I'll come."

 

         Kayta and all are very nice to me, but I am lost in a daze.  Salvador came so far…

         Aulie takes me down to the deepest basement level I have encountered in the Games complex to a room like a freezer.  Shaya and Salvador have been embalmed and touched up for burial.  It's unreal.  It feels like I'm crying so much, but what difference does it make?

 

         Eventually I find myself back watching with fellow victors.  Apple thinks it would be best for me, so I allow her to steer me here.  "Look after her," she stage-whispers to Sunny, who she continues to consider trustworthy and "good."

         It takes two more days for it to come down to Silk and Indiana.  I see Indiana take out Mica while watching the Games for a while with Apple, but none of it really sinks in.

         I wake up more to the reality of it in Sunny and Kayta's company.

         Jack and Pal are both glued to their screens.  Some of the rest of us have stuck around (I don't think anyone is allowed to go home before the Games end, but some of them are holed up in their district quarters) and keep coming back to watch them.  "Was it like this at the end of my Games?" I ask my company on the sidelines.

         "Nah," says Kayta, "Not even for me.  Your buddy Aulus was all worked up, but it wasn't as if there was anything we could do for you.  The room wasn't set up this way either all broken up and like.  It was just the monster screen.  What they'd do is the big screen started out broken up into twelve sections, split screened like your district screen is now when you've got two tributes, and as tributes got knocked out of the competition, the screenspace given over to the remaining ones would increase.

         "It wasn't as if there was anything we could do about it earlier on either, but by the time it was you, Beanpole, Haakon, and Meridew we victors were all pretty much just sitting here silently watching the water rise.  Before sponsorships, the Games felt much more…fatalistic?  I mean, victors and stuff, we felt as helpless as the people back home."  He runs his hand through his longish hair, "I'm not sure if this is better or worse now."

         I don't have experience as a mentor who advised and presented tributes to the best of their ability and then had to just hope for the best and let them go, but I do think I understand what he means.

         I am still concerned about what I should've done for my tributes in the arena.  What should I have done differently?  What could I have done better?  If I had just been a bit faster, could I have saved Salvador?  Could it be Salvador up there now, playing cat and mouse with, well, whichever of the other two would be left, Indiana or Silk?

         "Did you feel guiltier about them this year then?" I wonder, "Then you did in the years before?"

         "Not really," Shy shrugs.

         "Maybe a little," Kayta says, "But I know that there wasn't much I could do for these ones even in the best of circumstances.  …You know they told me they were in love."

         "Oh.  Gosh," I sigh.  That's got to be a tough situation.  We all play out the worst scenarios in our daydreams, I know, even when every scenario is already a worst case one after all.  With our ability to directly intercede through sponsorships, the possibilities become even worse.  Choosing between your tributes can truly happen now.  I don't know if on that first day, Pal had nothing he could send to his boy to help him (or at least ease his suffering) or, one hates to think it but, he chose not to send him anything.  …Because no tribute has received as many bits of material assistance as Silk Sachet.  The 2s may have seemed to have many items available to them, but they were secured as much by staking them out at the Cornucopia and fighting off all comers as they were through the airdrop efforts of Gerik and Hector.

         Jack watches Indiana and doesn't breathe a word to anyone for hours, finally seeming to have switched into completely and absolute focus.  Mostly, I think, I just want to know what happens.  I want to see this torturous thing out to the end.  I don't think most of us whose districts are out of the running have a strong preference for one or the other of the last two, but on some level I do feel caught between these two mentors who are my friends.

         …But me, being me, perhaps it's inevitable I have a leaning toward the girl from 8.  From now to the end of the Games (the end of time?  the end of my life?) this may be my deep-seated preference.  A little girl goes out there and fights for her life.  My heart goes out to her.

         As opposed to Jack's silence, Pal keeps on talking and talking into his headset.  His voice is a harsh whisper from heavy use.

         The endless undertones of his voice are like a spell.  He is weaving a victory out of words for her.

         They are _like_ a spell, but in a loose sense, they are _definitely_ a prayer.  I am tempted to join in with my favored spiritual mantra.  I mouth the names to myself: Peter, Zeno, Elmo, Brendan, Nicolas.

         With all the effort Pal has expended, I can't help but feel some concern about what will happen to him if that girl dies now.  …To what lengths can a mentor go for a tribute?  To what extent can a tribute affect a mentor?

 

         After we've (Kayta, Sunny, Shy, myself) finished eating lunch, the victors from 2 return to join us.  They're not both going to fit on the couch so they sit on the floor.  "We already ate," Hector assures us when Sunny tries to find something good left to give to them.

         "Sorry about Mica," I address Hector and Gerik.

         "I am not looking forward to going home and seeing the sister," Hector admits.  "She is really going to give it to me."

         "She lives in the same town as us," Gerik elaborates, "So he can't duck out of it all that easily.  It's not like we really knew them, but we saw both girls a lot long before the reaping.  You couldn't help noticing, since they were very pretty girls, but always out playing rough."

         "I'm gonna owe the sister," Hector frowns and taps his fingers rapidly against his knee, "Least I'm going to feel like I do.  Don't know how I'm going to make it up to her."

         "You know her name, Hector," Gerik prods him.

         "Yeah, well, I feel even worse when I put names to them," he grumbles.  "Mica was really good.  …they were both really good this year.  Mica wasn't even a volunteer."

         "I have higher hopes for next year," Gerik says.  I wonder at that.  Such confidence.  Of course, 2 has fielded many impressive tributes and their wins are receding somewhat into the past, so maybe their odds are up again?  Maybe they'll be better at working sponsors next year.  I suppose we should all be (I hate to suggest that some of our group may never improve, but is that such a bad thing to say if I'm not sure some are trying?).

         We watch Indiana stalking through the bramble-filled fields.

         "…think you'll have a volunteer next year?" Hector asks me.

         Is that a weird question?  I'm not sure.  My idea of normal is warped beyond belief anyway, so I'm not sure there's even a point in asking myself that.  "Because of Salvador?"

         "He was almost a volunteer, wasn't he?  …He was with you before the Games when your home was on TV.  …Or am I remembering the wrong kid?"

         "No," I assure him, "You're right.  He was there."

         We're quiet again for a while.

         "…he didn't volunteer though," I say at last, "He told me he was thinking about it, but he didn't get the chance.  …I don't think he would've volunteered.  He had more sense than that.  He was scared."

         "Weren't we all," Gerik snorts.  He's not making fun of Salvador.  It's probably the absolute truth.  The most universal truth of the Hunger Games: I was scared.  We were all scared.

         "The friend is gonna volunteer," Gerik guesses, "The boy with the dark, well, they all have dark hair.  The camera-happy one."

         Rodrigo, he means.  Rodrigo, probably.  "I don't know," I shake my head.

         "Gerik's got a feeling for this kind of thing," Hector adds.

         "Chatty peanut gallery today!" Jack calls to us, speaking for the first time in what feels like ages.

         "You mad?" Hector grins.

         "Nah, but don't bug Pal."

         Pal doesn't respond to the jibe.  I don't think he's even hearing a thing we're saying.

         "I don't want volunteers," Shy says quietly, "I don't want anyone to expect that much of me."

         "Volunteers expect it of themselves, Shy," Gerik tries to explain his point of view to her, but either Shy doesn't understand or she doesn't care.  …I know she worked for her tributes this year, the boy, Coy, especially, and for Laurie last year, but I don't think I would want to be in Shy's hands.  And not just her.  There's a lot of off the cuff sort of mentoring that worries me.  …though for all I know, I make the others just as nervous.  I was useless to Shaya from the beginning.  I was useless to Salvador in the end.  The odds are against every tribute and every mentor.

         The mentor versus mentor feeling amplifies with just two tributes remaining.

         "Let's just get this over with," Kayta mutters at the screen.

         Indiana and Silk.  When will they meet?

 

         The sun is drooping low in the sky when Pal sends Silk what I assume will be his final gift to her.  She eats the food and combs her fingers through her hair, then begins striking one of her knives against a rock until she makes a spark.

         She doesn't get a blaze going on the first try, but she doesn't have to.  When the dry arena takes fire, it fast becomes a conflagration.  Silk wets a piece of cloth (ripped from her clothes?) and ties it over her mouth and nose and moves away from the flames as they dance up against the dark.

         The fire saves time.  It brings Indiana to her.

         Fire is risky, but it's obviously what she wants.  It makes for quite a show.  That's what Jack is smiling at, I suppose.  I can see the bottom half of his face reflecting off his screen from where I'm sitting.  His teeth are fixed firm in a determined grin.

         Indiana enters the scene with that short-handled scythe Mica favored in his right hand and a whole parcel of other weapons under this arm.  "As if it needed to get any hotter out here," he grumbles.  He's limping a bit.  I suppose I didn't realize what ragged condition Jack's tribute had been left in by his battle- I don't think it's unfair to describe it as such- with Mica Saffron.

         "Let's make this easy, pipsqueak," he calls to her and slashes at the air.

         "Come and get me if you want me so badly!" she replies, though her words are muffled by the flimsy protection over her mouth and nose.

         Well, she won't come any nearer to her foe, so he is obliged to come and get her.  "She's toast," Shy whispers her quiet assessment of the situation.  …And I can't say I think Shy will be wrong if Indiana gets his hands on her, but…

         Letting the boy from District 1 lay so much as a finger on her is clearly not Silk's strategy.  He grows frustrated as she continues to withdraw and takes a few wild shots, throwing several pieces of his equipment at her.  None of them hit their mark.

         More and more of the arena is going up in flames.  I don't know how long it will take for smoke inhalation to wreck any severe damage on either of them.

         It suddenly seems very quiet in the mentoring room.  No one is making any smart remarks.  Pal has stopped his near-constant chattering into his headset.

         A parachute shimmers above the flames.

         Silk holds her tiny hand high above her head- if her prize escapes her, it may blow into the fire and that will be that.  Even her reaching seems to take an eternity.

         She grasps it.  An over-sized rubber band.  She rips it free from the parachute, which she feeds to the flames.

         It turns out that she has two shots to do this- because she's not using rocks or some kind of flaming debris for projectiles- she loops the rubber band over her left hand and loads up a knife.

         She has all the aim that Indiana lacked.  The knife goes straight into his neck.  He lurches into the nearest patch of fire.  Silk closes her eyes and raises her hands to cover her face.

         "…Did you know she had that shot in her?" Hector asks, well, Pal, presumably, though Pal is still the furthest in the room from us.

         But, even if Pal realizes he's been asked a question, he doesn't say anything until the official announcement is made.

 

         "The victor of the Thirteenth Hunger Games!"

 

         "I…gotta go, you guys," Pal staggers to his feet, "Silk, she- she needs me."

         The District 8 escort bursts in screeching with excitement.  Pal collapses in a heap at her feet.

         All of us scramble around trying to help, though there's not exactly enough work available for everyone to do anything worthwhile.  Shy takes to this best and hangs back, trying to convince the 8-associated woman that she's not likely to lose one victor in exchange for another (like it's a fairy story and that pretty young girl is sucking the life from Pal?).

         Jack carries Pal to the lobby, where he is taken from us by the paramedics.

         The moment lingers.  Gerik, Hector, and Kayta disperse to their own business.

         "…How are you feeling?" I ask Jack.  He, Sunny, and I are left alone in a pool of darkness, seeping in through the glass front doors.

         "Not half as bad as Pal," he answers.

         I wonder if he's feeling sort of numb.

 

 

         The "admirable" mentor is first interviewed about his great success from a hospital bed.  He gave his all for Silk Sachet and it shows.

         "Makes the rest of us look like a bunch of yahoos," Kayta complains over lunch in the District 5 quarters.

         "I don't care if Capitol people think I'm a yahoo," Shy disagrees in her own off manner.

         "It could hurt sponsorship opportunities," Sunny posits.

         Teejay holds up his glass to the light and peers at it oddly.  "…What's in this lemonade, Sunny?"

         "Nothing other than what's usually in lemonade, to my knowledge," she smiles and shakes her head.

         Onscreen, Pal chats amiably with the pink-haired reporter.  "…But you know I would be lying if I didn't say that I was supported indirectly by my fellow victors.  We're mostly kind of all there for one another."

         Direct help would be against the rules, right?

         "What type of help?" the reporter carries on sweetly.

         "Well, when I wasn't sleeping, some of them convinced me to take a nap.  And Sunny, you know, from Six, got me cleaned back up and organized when I was surrounded by trash.  Mags gave some cake toward the end of it."

         Just before the woman poses her next question, Pal pre-empts her.  "You want to know what kind of cake it was, right?" his dark eyes twinkle, "It was coconut."

 

 

         Silk's injuries aren't all that extensive.  I hear that she will be properly fixed up for her crowning ceremony to be held in just three or four days.  There's some joking about Pal being in about the same shape as his tribute, minus the smoke inhalation.

         I try to visit him at the hospital, but he's gone up to sit with Silk and I'm not allowed to see her.

         In the meantime I wait around.  I prefer not to be alone since it gives me too much time to reflect on the bad things, of which there are many.  I accept an invitation from Jack to come and record a congratulatory message for Pal, Silk, and District 8.  I don't know who else he made the offer to, but Gerik and Hector also accepted.  Pal is pretty well liked, but it's probably inevitable that some of the other victors are feeling too bitter or depressed over their losses to want to get in on this.  And no matter their personal feelings, some might not want to go on television fussing over the success of another district.

         I run into the hairstylist whose dog was named for me again and find out that Sunny and Beto were both turned down by the producers as not camera-friendly enough.  I don't really see why it matters.  …I also don't see what's not camera-friendly about Sunny.  She's pretty and well spoken.  She doesn't have a heavy accent.  I'm inclined to think it's really some PR thing.

         At the studio I receive and accept another invitation, to eat out at some Capitol restaurant ("a low-key kind of place; don't worry, no one will hassle us there') with Hector and Gerik.  They get Jack to come along too.

         It takes a while for the four of us to warm to conversation, but Hector offers to split a beer with me and I want to know if I can get a lime to go with it and gradually our smalltalk draws the more reserved Gerik in.  Jack is gregarious, but only in a shallow sort of way.

         I work up to a more serious topic I'm interested in hearing their thoughts on, though I'm fearful of spoiling the mood with it.  "Skilled tributes would make a better show, wouldn't they?" I half-ask, half-suggest, to the three men.  "I mean," I pick out Gerik, since I get the feeling he's most likely to agree with me, and look him straight in the eye, "You'd rather not all the concluding fights end up like mine, right?"

         "Y-yeah," Gerik agrees.  I know, I was pretty bad.  I can see it in his expression.

         "That Haakon guy was okay though," Hector shrugs.

         "But he could have been _better_ ," Gerik answers the idea.

         "And I could, obviously, have been much better," I nod vigorously.

         But it's too late to make any difference for the Thirteenth Games.  They are already done, but I can't imagine none of the other victors have been thinking ahead.  I can't imagine that no one else hasn't at least thought about trying what I'm toying with.

         "You trained yours," Gerik realizes.  He looks at me with newfound respect.

         "Yeah, to weave baskets, maybe," Hector raises an eyebrow.  I assume he's remembering whatever they broadcast about my basket-weaving talent.  How even boys came to see or learn it.  Maybe even how Salvador was one of them?  Salvador did talk about it.  And I did too, on camera, though I don't know if they played it.

         "Yes," I agree.  Because at the moment, that's all it.  Teaching most of the things that you need to do to survive in the arena would be illegal- even if I could do them well enough to teach them.

         "And they picked up a few tricks on the side," Gerik surmises.

         "And yours could too," I say.  I wouldn't be surprised if he told me that once or twice they had.  There have been other 2s who fought like Gerik.  He might not trust me enough to say that though.  I'm the one here with the biggest mouth.

         "…Do you know what I did before my Games, Mags?  I don't think anyone mentions it these days," Gerik scratches his chin.  It's clear that I picked the right man to discuss this with.  There's some wry amusement in his gray eyes.

         "Uh-uh."  I don't.

         "I was in training to be a Peacekeeper."

         Oh.  Well.  I reel a little.  That makes sense.  It makes a lot of sense.  The tributes who fought like Gerik were probably also Peacekeeper trainees.  Jack chuckles at my easily read expression.  I've been getting the feeling that Jack purposely enjoys letting me learn things he already knows from other people just so he can see the look on my face.  I should find this trait more annoying than I have thus far.

         "See, the thing is though, just because you're in Peacekeeper training and know some stuff about fighting doesn't make you want to volunteer.  You want to live and serve by being a Peacekeeper."  The topic is clearly important to him.  His voice starts to rise with irritation.  "And I still want to be a Peacekeeper, not some crummy Hunger Games coach!  I want to carry a gun and wear a uniform and remind people to follow the rules and be careful and be a hero who protects people- not that guy with the metal leg who killed five bitty kids.  They say that if you're the victor you'll be happy and get to do what you want, but if money doesn't buy what you want, that's a complete lie."  He lets out a snort, dispersing some of his anger into the air.

         The waitress headed towards us stops short and stays a cautious distance from our table.  Who knows what victors do when they get worked up?  Maybe we'll get violent.  When Gerik notices her, he waves her over and orders a drink.

         The Games are bad enough as it is, but when you stop and consider it, there's a special unfairness in them for 2.  At least the rest of our districts rebelled.  At least there's something to want vengeance for.  Gerik Rinsai would've been happy to play ball with the Capitol before his Games.  Now his participation is reluctant.

         "You care a lot about fairness, huh?" Hector observes.  Just like Gerik, he seems to be looking on me as more of an equal than before.

         "Hmm."  I'm not sure.  Maybe?  Not as much as I should.  There's not as much room for fairness in this world as there should be.

         "Let the best man win and all that," Gerik heaves a sigh.

         "Someone's gotta want it," Jack says.

         "…and if they don't want it on their own, you've gotta convince them to," Hector concludes.  "Like they do here."

         "I'm terrible at that," Gerik says.  There's a crackling in his voice, like he wants to cry or laugh.  I can't decide which.  He holds out his hands, palms up, to encircle the rest of us.  "…but you guys…"

         "I'll work on it," Hector promises.

         "Hector, what did you do before your Games?" I want to know now.  "I remember," I say, to let him know that I'm not completely oblivious.  Memory has meaning.  "You said you broke rocks."

         He squints a little (his eyes are blue, a beautiful blue) and drops a look toward Gerik, like to make sure that he heard that.  "Had to drop out of school and go to work in the mines.  So you remember right.  …And you, girlie, were busy with your schoolbooks, weren'tcha?" he makes a small motion, pulling at the air with his hand, which I think implies something about kids in school and pulling hair.  Here together as victors we make up some kind of set.  Like a seashell collection.  We're different types.  We're different colors.  We came from different places.  We don't match, but we've all been battered by the same sea.  If we'd all been together as kids (if we were all about the same age), well, there might have been nothing but Hector pulling my hair from the desk behind me.

         "Obvious?" I wonder.

         "But it's nothing to be ashamed of," Hector answers, sure.

         Gerik looks at Jack, but Jack makes no offers.  He doesn't like to talk about himself outside the superficial.  And everything that came before his Games counts as superficial.

         "Another beer maybe?" Hector smiles at me.

         "Okay, if you're still splitting it with me."

         "Jack?" he offers.

         "I'll pass."

         Hector raises a hand to block his mouth as he stage-whispers to me, "Jack only came along in the first place because we told him you'd be here with us."

         A strange ringing sound startles two-thirds of our group before I can reply.  "Sorry," Jack removes the offending device, a envelope thin phone or something, from his shirt pocket, "It's from Mr. Zimmer.  I've got to go."

         "Oh, uh, bye, Jack," we manage in various tones.

         The waitress brings us our latest order.

         "…You know, I get the impression Jack was a little relieved your kid didn't make it," at length Hector speaks again to share this questionable news with me, "…Though he was probably okay with losing his for the same reason."

         "And why's that?" the words spill our sharply.  I feel cross at the suggestion, though whether because I believe it or not is harder to determine.

         "You'd be busy with a new victor," Gerik supplies.

         "…But he-" I'm not sure I should say it, "He sponsored Salvador himself."

         "We're not saying he purposely did anything that would hurt either of your chances," Hector shrugs, "Just that he was a little more at peace with the outcome of the Final Four scenario than we would've expected."

         "Then again," Gerik twirls his shot glass around between his fingers, "Jack's strange.  We probably shouldn't have brought it up- _Hector_.  We've just gotten to like you and all, so it seemed like something to keep in mind."

 

         They're well meaning.  We ride back to the Training Center together.  Apple gets kind of bent out of shape over the whiff of beer she catches from me, but Aulie steps in and calms her down, saying that I'm not drunk and how could I get any safer than going out with fellow victors and I'm old enough to do that sort of thing anyway the last part of which gets Apple kind of worked up all over again but this time about the notion that I won't always be so young.

         "Victors grow up," Aulie takes and strokes her hand, "They stay a bunch of cute kids for you to fuss over forever."

         But there'll be new victors for that.  The newest one, getting such a young start, will stay a cute young kid longer than most.

         I excuse myself to shower and go to bed.

         I have a variation on a nightmare I've had before, but not for months.  The one where Jack Umber is a dentist armed with all sorts of overelaborate torture devices for ostensibly "fixing" my teeth.  Shaya and Salvador assure me my appointment will go wonderfully.  They love their new smiles from the Capitol.  I don't understand.  Their teeth are the same as ever.  …they mean their slashed throats.

         I wake up in the early morning, sweating and tangled in my sheets.

         I'm afraid to go back to sleep after that.  I mindlessly watch television for two and a half hours before it seems like a reasonable time to get dressed and eat breakfast.

         I eat slowly and by myself.  My cereal gets soggy.

         "The recap and crowning will be tonight," Apple informs me when she joins me.  "And you are, of course, invited to the Victory Banquet afterward at the president's mansion, so you should pick out something nice to wear."

         "Nothing assigned to me?"

         Apple's smile is sweet, but sad, "Oh, you're all but nobody tonight, dear.  There's no need for Erinne and her girls to get caught up doing everything."

         "What she means is, she assumes you won't wear rolled up jeans and a t-shirt," Aulie chimes in as he arrives with coffee, "Even though this arrived for you via Victor Affairs," he tosses something soft and green toward me, which I fumble, luckily not so that it ends up in my breakfast, but, rather, unfurls over the top of my head.

         It's a t-shirt.  More precisely, it's Jack's t-shirt.  Not the exact one he's been wearing- it's too small- but the same design.  "First Annual Hunger Games."  The silhouette on the back has been signed: "Jack Umber."  "Oh, Jack said something about giving me one, I think.  …I'm not sure I ever exactly accepted the offer though."

         "He's like that," Apple reflects.

         "Did Jack not stay little and cute long enough for you?" Aulie teases her.

         "Oh, shush," Apple brushes him off.

 

         I chose to wear the one fancy garment I packed- my own blue victory dress.  I like it.  When Apple sees me in it she wonders whether wearing it is in good taste and even calls up Erinne over the etiquette of the matter, but finally concludes that there's no rule against it and lets it go.

         I mix an element I liked from another prior ensemble into my look for the night- the stars-in-a-net veil from the end of my Victory Tour.  I think it and the dress go well together, though I get the feeling Apple believes she's merely humoring my strange costuming sense.

         Apple and Aulie aren't invited to the Victory Banquet, but they do have seats to watch the recap along with me.  It's not a required thing for all the victors, but I don't know, it makes sense to me to go.  The only ones I can pick out in the crowd when I get there are Sunny and Shy, but that doesn't mean everyone else passed on it.

         Jack is onstage for the proceedings like he was last year, but he doesn't talk as much.  I'm not sure if this says something about Jack's interest in me or if it's because Silk has a victor-mentor to do the talking to and about her instead.

         Silk is dainty and delicate, dressed in what starts out on top as an ordinary green sundress and blossoms below as some kind of translucent hot house flower in various translucent layers of green, pink and yellow.  My eye is drawn somehow to her emerald green flats- she has such tiny, tiny feet.  Her makeup is light and natural in style.

         Pal wears typical Pal-ish clothes, dressing in browns and tans and off-whites.  His shirt is embroidered with deep blue flowers in what I'd take for a traditional District 8 style.  Knowing Pal, he might have done the embroidery himself.  Some stylist has left his hair artfully tousled.  He wears his patchwork coat over his shoulders like a cloak.

         Silk is dressed to stand out and Pal to fade away into the background.  Still, they look pretty together.  Silk smiles a lot.

        

         I don't expect to be surprised by what I see in the recap, but I didn't actually watch too much of the Games footage in its edited for broadcast format anyway and this cut has reshaped it a step further, so-

         Shaya is less than a footnote as a death in the bloodbath.

         Salvador strikes only a distant counterpoint.

         For the sake of my not suffering an extended fit of crying during the event, it's probably for the best, but even without my tributes' trials and state-sanctioned murder to tug at my feelings, something catches my attention.

         It's the way the camera looks- looked- at Silk.  I felt awkward during the Games at her extended nudity, but that scene was only one small part of a whole.

         Her dress now starts to look less innocent.  I feel uncomfortably aware of how much of her scrawny legs I can make out through that diaphanous fabric.

         She is only a little girl.  It shouldn't be any different just because she's a little girl who was forced to kill.

         Jack doesn't look at her like that, or Pal, or Mr. Bronze, or Mr. Zimmer, but the camera did and still does.  I feel sort of relieved when the recap is through and the president steps up to present her with her crown.  It isn't gold like mine, but riffs partially on that same ancient idea of a laurel crown.  A circlet of shining green leaves doesn't meet neatly in the middle, but shoots upward toward the left side of Silk's brow, the upward section marked by seven pointed shapes of shimmering metal.  Seven stars.  The Seven Sisters.

         There's so much clapping and cheering it makes my ears ring.

         Mr. Zimmer puts a bunch of flowers into her hands.

         "There aren't any red roses," Silk examines the bouquet that Mr. Zimmer has given her.  There are roses in pink and yellow and white and daisies in red and pink and white and yellow too, highlighted with little sprigs of greenery, curlicued leaves and bits of fern.

         It's a typical post-victory comment, I gather.  She's all here, but without the normal (proper?) priorities.  It's like she's in a walking dream.

         …Yes, that's really what it seems like watching her and that's how it was for me.

         "Well, red roses are for lovers, Silk," Mr. Zimmer laughs.

         "Flower language?" Mr. Bronze scoffs, "Is that still around?"

         "In some circles."

         "She just likes roses," Pal interjects, trying to skirt the idea.  He puts his arm protectively around Silk's scrawny, almost-bare shoulders.  She is tiny, so tiny, even beside Pal, who isn't all that big himself.  Even though we all saw it just days ago, it's hard to reconcile this daintiness with the fact that she's killed two people.  She is the youngest victor ever.  She is fourteen years old- well, fifteen, just barely (They like the sound of fourteen, but she spoke up to mention she turned fifteen the day Pal sent her the cherry- that was what the cherry was, a birthday gift).  An orphan girl from the factories of 8.

         Her mother died in a factory fire.  The same one that killed so many of the people close to Pal, though neither of them has mentioned this for the audience.

         Silk keeps her eyes on the flowers.  She keeps on stroking the large rose petals.  "Thank you," she says, "Thank you for the flowers."

 

         The missing red roses are made up for that night.  I watch as she and Pal arrive at the party and person after person rushes up to present some to her.  She receives dozens.

         Something about my demeanor at the party must not come off very well.  "You look like you could use a drink," Hector laughs, steering me toward a waiter with a tray of brightly colored fluted glasses.  He picks a glass off the tray for each of us.

         "I might need more than one," I admit, but Hector just finds this funny.

         I mingle with the attending public and suffer some Crispco cracker jokes and recognition of my clothes ("Though they weren't previously in this combination, I think").  Shy offers me the ultimatum of hearing more of this same stuff or dancing with her, so, of course, I give in.  She has a new dress for the occasion: "Not that anyone will notice, but, well, that means the next time I wear it, people will think it's new then too."

         I try some unidentifiable appetizers, none of which are bad, but none of which really suit me either.  I find myself another drink.  I am only halfway through it when the floor shifts a bit beneath my feet- or, well, not really, but it feels that way to me.  I reappraise the turquoise-colored drink in my hand.  Maybe I have had enough.  Am I a little drunk?  I am pretty sure I've had enough.  I set my drink down on the nearest table with no intent to reclaim it.

         Unlike my last Capitol party, this time I am, fortunately, far from the center of attention.  Silk is the newest victor of the Hunger Games.  Everyone wants to talk to her, to look at her, to dance with her.  But there's something about the way so many of them look at her.  Something about Silk makes a lot of people look at her- in a way that makes me nervous.  …Did they look at me like that and I just never noticed?  Do they still?

         I shuffle out of the way so I can lean against the wall.  Teejay is sitting on the ground nearby, his chin propped up on his knees, as he watches the other guests mill around and talk and dance.  I wonder momentarily if he's a bit drunk too, but decide that this is probably just another day for Teejay and his morphling addiction.  …And even if it's not, what's the difference?

         I'm not above sitting on the floor either.  I slide down beside him.  The world seems much steadier that way anyway.  "Are you having fun, Teejay?" I ask him.

         "This place is beautiful," he sighs, "The people are so beautiful too.  All the colors…"

         Well, if you like to see colors in unnatural combinations and brightnesses, I imagine a Capitol party can't be beat.  "Yeah," I agree, "Yeah, it is."

         "I like your stars," he reaches a slowly wavering hand out to touch them.

         "Thank you.  So do I."

         "Are the two of you making friends now?" Jack Umber asks us out of the blue.  I mean, I knew he was here somewhere- Apple told me that all of the other victors would be (she was still pretty disappointed that she wasn't included anymore now that I was old news when she dropped me off), but I hadn't seen him yet.  And, usually, when he's in my vicinity, I manage to notice Jack Umber.

         "I think today we're on the same page," I venture, although I'm not honestly not sure that Teejay even knows who I am and that he's met me a couple of times before.

         "That's good, that's good.  That's your victor solidarity movement at work, right, Mags?" Jack teases.  "Beer with Hector and Gerik, then observing everyone's shoes along with Teejay?"

         "Oh, shut up," I swing a lazy fist out and knock my knuckles against his leg.

         "Come on," Jack leans over and solidly grasps my upper arm, "I'm sure Teejay is already your friend for life; let's go spread some of that solidarity movement to the masses."

         "Ah, Jack, not now," I groan as he tugs me to my feet.  I don't put enough effort into holding myself in place and sway against his side.

         "Mags loves you, Jack." Why does Teejay find it within himself to speak up now when he usually stays inside his head?  And to say something like that, of all things?

         "Yes, I know," Jack laughs it off, "Everyone loves me, Teejay!  But, the problem confronting us right now is the fact that, at this very moment, they love Silk even more."

         He's right, I realize.  The looks they give Silk.  The things they ask her.  All the sponsors she received.  It wasn't just Pal working the crowd.  It was a very pretty girl from District 8 innocently washing out her bloody shirt in the lake.  When I felt uncomfortable watching before, I already knew, but I didn't allow myself to believe it.  But once it's been said I can't ignore it.

         I look across the room.  She is standing with the president right now.  Even he looks at Silk like he wants something from her.  Does he want to cut her open?  Does he want to eat her up?  All the horrible things that can be done to a (relatively) innocent young girl overlap in my mind.

         What luck was it that kept that girl from being me?  Maybe I have the fact that I'm not very pretty to thank.  Maybe the difference is in the sponsorships.

         It's too late, I think.  The damage has been done.  She is adorable, desirable.  Someone more interesting than me or Pal or Beto or Emmy Pollack.  …Someone a bit like Jack, it hits me.  I have some questions for later for Jack if I can ask and he can (and will) answer.

         I can only think of one thing to do for her, and it will only be temporary.  But it's the best I can do.  "Let's make a scene," I suggest to Jack.

         "What's that now?" he asks.  I'm not sure if he was distracted or if I was unclear.

         "You're not afraid of attention, Jack," I sort of ask and sort of say, reassuring myself of the truth of the statement, because even if Jack isn't afraid of attention, in a way, I am.

         "How do you want to do that?" he wonders, clearly open to hearing my plan at least, "Are we going to start a fight or something?  …Because I don't really want to have to hit you, Mags-"

         I grab his shirt and stand up on my toes, taking advantage of the fact that as he talks to me he is already leaning down a bit, and, right then and there (I think I really am a little drunk), I kiss Jack Umber, the victor of the 1st Hunger Games.

         Kayta Hiro, distinctly from District 7 tonight with his long, leaf-patterned sash, is so surprised by what he's seeing he accidentally spins the Capitol woman he's dancing with into the table, where her ridiculous transparent hoop dress knocks the punch bowl and several trays of appetizers onto the floor.  And, well.  Everyone is definitely looking at us now.

         Victor solidarity (not that he intended it).  Thanks, Kayta.

         Jack's eyes are so very green.  I stumble a bit as I drop back onto the flats of my feet.  Jack moves forward a step with me.

         Within just seconds, a man in a gray suit inserts himself sharply between us, though his presence doesn't serve to disconnect my hand from Jack's arm.  "The president has requested that you come and sit with him," this stern man with an elaborately curled short beard says to me.

         "I don't think I want to," I answer, which may not be the best of ideas, but it is sincere.  I am finding this man's being here makes me incredibly more embarrassed than it does nervous, when usually anything involving the president would strike a note of terror.  But he did say "request," after all.  Jack looks around nervously, but doesn't step away or make me let go of his arm.

         "You have to," the man corrects himself.

         "Fishsticks," I grumble, which sets Jack to laughing.  And apparently I'm the only one they want, because the man takes my arm in a gentle sort of way, not like he intends to drag me there, but like he wants to make sure I don't fall over and make an even bigger scene than I've already made.

         "Bye-bye, Fishsticks.  It was nice knowing you," Kayta bestows an impromptu nickname upon me as I pass him by.  The woman he was dancing with is getting pretty frustrated as he ignores her while she smacks his arm with her plastic folding fan.

         "Is everyone in District Four that into public displays of affection?" Pal asks as I step onto the dais where the president's table sits.  Pal takes me from the bearded Capitol man, who appears happy to be rid of me.  The feeling is mutual.  The man heads directly to the president once he leaves me, probably to report that the matter of breaking up the drunk and disorderly victors has been accomplished.

         I hope that the president doesn't want to actually talk to me.  For all my idiotic bravado and the alcohol in me, he still makes me nervous.  And, anyway, what is he going to tell me that I don't already know?  Margaret Gaudet, you're a real idiot.

         Pal sets me down in a reddish colored chair beside the table.  "Be good," he chides me like an older brother, even though we're basically the same age.  It's Pal's personality, or that in combination with some victor seniority thing.  He's already about to drift away though.  He gives me one last command before stepping away: "Sober up."

         The chair to my left is empty.  To my right, in a flowing dress of various see-through layers, is the newly crowned victor of the 13th Hunger Games, Silk Sachet.  Not only is she just fourteen, but she's small.  Why can't I get past that part?  I smile at her, because what else am I going to do?  Did she see what I just did?  Should I be embarrassed?

         "You're Mags from District Four, right?" Silk says.  She seems interested in me.  Would she have been this curious before I made an enormous fool of myself in front of the entire party (and via camera, probably most of the Capitol by the time the celebrity gossip programs air, if not all of Panem)?

         "Yes, I am," I inform her.  I instigated that idiocy with Jack because I wanted to help her somehow, but now that we're sitting together, I find I'm not sure what else I want to say.  'Stop being so cute?'  'Don't take off your top on camera again?'  I'm getting tired of realizing how stupid and short-sighted I am.

         "What happened to Faline Beaumont?"

         She remembers the Reaping Day the year before hers.  She remembers that I wasn't reaped.  That I volunteered.  And not only that, she remembers Faline _by name_.  It's official.  I really, really like Silk Sachet.  How on earth could I not?

         "She's great," I say, which is true, even if it's a sort of awkward answer.

         "That's good.  I mean, I bet she was almost more relieved when you won than you were, Mags.  I think it might be kind of hard to deal with if someone volunteered in your place and ended up dying."

         It was something that occurred to me in the arena (yet another of the many things I realized sort of belatedly), so I know what she's talking about.

         "I suppose there are a bunch of people who had to deal with that though," she muses, "I mean, there have been other volunteers, but you're the only one so far who ended up a victor."

         Well, Silk is already one of the victors, isn't she?  Nice and morbid.  She fits in fine.

         I see the president talking to Jack.  Even with both of them smiling, it worries me.  Maybe more because both of them are smiling.  "The president really likes Jack," Silk follows my gaze, "Jack's his favorite victor.  He said so.  He said that I might make him change his mind though.  Though, as long as I don't get in trouble, it doesn't really matter to me either way."

         "I'm really scared of the-"  President, I'm about to say, but the man himself has turned around to head back toward us.

         "Are you familiar with the notion 'what comes around, goes around,' Miss Gaudet?" he greets me.

         "Yes, sir," I answer.  Who isn't?  Though I can't say I believe in it.  …That, or it takes an incredibly long time for some things to come around, case in point, that you yourself are standing here before me today, Mr. President.

         "In light of that sentiment then, I suggest that you and Mr. Umber take a moment to keep in mind how your actions will effect many people beyond yourselves and, however you chose to proceed, you do so thoughtfully."

         Although I'm sure it's rude, I can't keep my eyes on the president for longer than a few words at a time.  I'm just too uncomfortable.  My gaze darts in search of oases of safety to Silk, who stills wears her even smile; to Pal, who has come up nearer to us with an expression that reflects my discomfort; to Nar, from Victor Affairs, whose smile is even less comforting than Pal's slight frown.

         "Mr. Lycius," the president sees me looking at the man who sort of counts as my handler and beckons him over.  He remands me into Nar's custody.  Pal tells me to take care as I am ushered away from the party's focal point and her the nearest planets in her orbit.  Silk waves goodbye and voices her quite honest desire that the two of us meet again.  The president just watches.

         "Am I in trouble?" I ask.

         "Maybe with Ms. Smitt," Nar smirks, "I don't think Mr. Strong or your father are likely to voice any objections regarding your choice of affections."

         He's teasing me.  Does it mean my concerns of official trouble are unfounded or is this just a smokescreen?  "No, I mean real trouble.  With you.  With the president.  With Victor Affairs."

         "Well, our president is rather attached to Mr. Umber," Nar carries on with mischief in his eyes, as glinting as the green and gold glitter in his eyeshadow, "So he might have an objection or two to your horning in on his territory, but he's hardly done anything to curb the extent of your interaction thus far, which makes me think he'll let it pass."  Nar winks.  I am awed at the strange jokeyness of his into pausing.

         Nar rolls his eyes and tugs at my long veil to get me moving again.  Apparently we're not where he wants us to be yet, even if that place is just further away from Silk and the president.  "Trust me, if you'd done something that merited punishment, I wouldn't be joking."

         The steel in his voice is more steadying to me than cutting.  I'm glad to know it's there and I don't have to distinguish the cold truth from the fog of his sarcasm.

         "That's not to say there won't be consequences to your little show here.  You have to realize that everything you do in the Capitol will be on display- and some of what you do back in your district too.  As a victor, people are watching you.  Just because there's a newer, more adorable victor onstage now doesn't mean people stop paying attention to you.  Associating further with someone like Mr. Umber will only serve to keep you in the limelight longer.  Now," he allows me to stop beside one of the tables of refreshments, "I can't say I have a problem with that.  I'd like to see you continue to be out there catching the public's eye, but I would also much prefer if you thought beforehand about how you wanted to do that instead of acting out impulsively."

         "Oh."  I lean a bit against the table.  "…Oh."

         "It's not just me, you know," he laughs and picks up a glass of something pink with cherries at the bottom, "Everyone in Victor Affairs would think more or less the same.  We're supposed to be managing you victors!  We like to spin you our own way- or at least assist you in spinning yourselves."

         It's true that I was trying to create a stir, but the actual meaning of that commotion wasn't my focus- certainly not more than what I wanted to distract from (and managed for all of thirty seconds).

         I notice Emmy dancing with Ferdinand.  There are shiny pink streamers in her hair.  Her dress is pink too and almost seems to be made entirely of sequins.  She looks so happy.  Ferdinand is smiling down at her too.  His hair and mustache are waxed extra perfectly for the occasion.

         Nar downs about half the drink in one swig and chokes for a moment on a cherry.  He coughs and recovers.  "…Now, all of that is my way of saying that I'd appreciate it if you'd inform me about any public designs on Mr. Umber.  The fellow managing him would probably appreciate it too, though, frankly, taking care of Diluc isn't high on my list of priorities."

         "Uh," I say, stupidly, "With Jack, I."  Well, I would have to talk with Jack, wouldn't I?  But for my part…  "I imagine things will stay as they have."

         "You were caught up in the whole celebratory air weren't you, then?" Nar tries out a possible way of framing it.  He cocks his head and looks me over, then tests another idea, "You hadn't realized how strong the drinks in the Capitol can be and the alcohol went straight to your head."

         I don't know what to say, though if they mention the drinks, I will be sure that I never give the Capitol a single chance more to paint me as a drunk.  I look down at my gold-colored shoes and sway with that same wobbliness remaining in my system.

         A very tall, thin man wearing neon blue rimmed glasses hurries as quickly around as the dance floor as I imagine can still be considered fashionable headed straight toward Nar.  "There's Diluc now," he informs me and lets out a low whistle, before spattering his words with a bit more chuckling.  "It might be for the best if you let the two of us work this out on our own.  He's not exactly enamored of how much flirting Jack does with you."

         So, it is flirting then?  Is that Nar's opinion, or does he know that?  He turns toward Diluc to shield my exit from his view.  Blocked on one side by Nar, another by the table, and unwilling to head back toward the president, I squeeze myself into the midst of a thicket of dancing bodies.

         When I pass through safely to the other side, I'm met by my reflection in a pair of thick glasses.  Beto looks back down and taps something onto the glowing screen of a tiny electronic device that fits in his palm.  "Live from the scene!" he even manages a mock-Capitol accent, which I would have thought too much at odds with his own manner of speaking.  He holds the screen up to me, showing me a slightly off-center clip that plays over and over, captured in time.

         I can see now from this few minutes' retrospect that in that moment, Jack looked happy.

         Jack comes up behind Beto now to join us.  "Excellent response time," Beto compliments him and takes his miniature screen back out of my hand.

         "Thanks, Beto," Jack flashes him a quick thumbs-up.

         Beto shrugs, though he's smiling slightly, "You know the state of affairs with favors."  They have something worked out, I take it.  Both for Beto's sending him a message about me and what he'll do in return.  I can't say I know what kind of relationship the two of them have.

         "We danced once before," Jack looks down at me with those lively green eyes of his alight, "Will you dance with me again?"

         "Not like that," I gesture back to the tightly writhing bodies I just brushed through.  I mean, not even all the Capitol citizens are dancing like that, but it's best to be clear.  …I should be especially clear to make up for any murkiness in my behavior earlier.

         "No, not like that," he confirms, "More like before."

         "Okay."

         Beto is holding up his tech device and, I don't know, photographing us?  "Could you be a little less blatant about that, paparazzo-in-training?" Jack suggests.

         "I'm good," Beto slips the device into his pocket and, uh, tips his glasses at us (is that a thing people do?) before backing away.

         Jack holds his hand out to me and I place my palm in his.

         The veil of stars floats around me as we turn gently around the dance floor.


	11. Part III, Chapter I

**Part III - Show Me That and Destroy Me**

 

 

         Apple meets me that morning with a tabloid magazine in hand. This is the regular issue. Silk and her victory will, of course, have an entire special issue devoted to them. There has to be something else to write about though. Something else to see. I am kissing Jack in the largest picture on the front. "Mags!" Apple demands, "Explain this!"

         I smile sheepishly. It is no great feat to predict lots of this in my immediate future. It won't work for anyone else, but I have a good line for Apple in this situation. "I watched his birthday recording for me," I explain.

         "Can I watch it?" Aulie blurts out enthusiastically. Since he heard of the thing's existence, I think he's been hoping for the emergence of an appropriate moment to put in this request.

         How can I be embarrassed about that with last night's development hanging over me? …Well, I still sort of am, but if he wants to watch it on his own, that's fun. "Go have fun," I allow, "It's sitting on my dresser."

         He heads off at a jaunty pace, leaving Apple almost as exasperated with him, I think, as she is with me.

         "Look," she sits down across from me, "It's not that I want to be mean or controlling. It's just…I really like you, dear. I don't want to see you get hurt and I think a romance with someone like Jack is a bit over your head."

         "I know." Really, I do. I mean, I'm not sure I understand all of Apple's reasons for thinking that Jack is too, uh, something for me. Too sophisticated? He's definitely more worldly than I am. Is it that he's older? There _are_ roughly eleven years between us.

         It doesn't feel so big.

         Of maybe I like that part a bit. I like it how Jack isn't visibly flailing around like me. I like how he seems to be, not exactly in control, but how he knows what he's doing. It's like with boats. No one can control the sea, but some can sail it better than others.

         "I don't think we're going to have 'a romance' anyway," I say.

         Apple plucks a folded piece of stiff, fancy paper out of her pocket and shows it to me. There are four-leafed clovers painted on her fingernails. I don't comment on how that seems funny to me. "He invited you to come have lunch at his place before you leave for home."

         I take the card from her. It's worded much more casually than Apple put it, more in Jack's own voice. His handwriting is tall and scratchy, at odds with the pretty paper. "Well," I smile, "He did invite you along too. …I mean, Aulie can come if you'd rather not."

         "I am most certainly the one who will accompany you!" Apple is adamant.

         I set down the card. "Yeah," I laugh, hopefully not in a way that offends her, "I thought so. …Hey, tell me, do you know where Jack lives here?"

         "He has an apartment, I gather. Someplace picked for convenience to the television studios."

         "That makes sense."

         In light of the invitation I decide to change my clothes to wear the t-shirt Jack gave me. …Or is there something weird about that? Maybe it's good. Maybe it establishes me as just a fan of his. A dumb kid, even if I have technically passed the first threshold of adulthood by crossing the eighteen-year-old reaping mark. (Even if I crossed it when I killed or when I survived)

         The shirt runs a bit large. I am even smaller than Jack guessed I was.

         I look at myself in the mirror. I think I look good in green.

         "Change of plans," Aulie informs me when I come back out of my room, my meager traveling kit and clothes repacked in preparation for the journey home. It's going to be a glum one, so I have some extra appreciation for the gift Jack is giving me with a last activity that's relatively disconnected from the Games (there's that thing about the "relatively" part - there will never be anything between Jack and me that doesn't have some connection to the Games).

         "What?"

         "Lunch is off. The whole travel schedule got bumped up."

         "Oh…" I'm disappointed. "Did we say anything to Jack yet? Should I call him and apologize?"

         "I took care of it," Apple says. "I assumed it would be faster and easier that way. Of course, he understood completely. He'd heard about the schedule adjustments and was aware of the effect they might have."

         "Okay," I agree. There's nothing else productive I can add.

 

         Aulie accompanies us to the train station, but stays behind in the Capitol. Where I once traveled home a dazed and tired "winner," I now make the same journey with the physical reminder that my best will never be good enough. My best may not even be half good enough.

         Jack Umber is nothing more than a diversion. A funny one. A handsome one. But still.

 

         There's no fanfare for my return. There is Papa on the platform. There is Mayor Current and his wife and his son. There is Mrs. Chavez and her mother. Mrs. Mirande is also there. And 'Lito. His arms are raised above his head and he clutches a cloth banner, stretching it between his hands: "Viva D4."

         I am not sure if I am relieved or reluctant as I step from the train. I am poised between two worlds at the point where they intersect. I hover there a moment.

         Both feet find the ground. I am back in District 4.

         Cue the tears.

         I wonder why Mrs. Mirande came. She is the one who rushes up to hug me. And then, as I peek over her trembling shoulder at the families of my first pair of dead tributes, I wonder if she's here to protect me.

         Apple pats my back and tells me goodbye while I am still in Mrs. Mirande's arms. She isn't crying, but I can tell she's sad anyway. She'd rather not be here.

         When the train pulls away, I can see the blond Avox put her hand up to the glass of a window in her own goodbye to me. I wish I knew her name.

 

         Papa, Mrs. Mirande, and 'Lito walk home with me. Salvador's family joins Shaya's in transporting the plain coffins containing their bodies.

 

         The next day the cliffside cemetery hosts a double funeral. Everyone is dressed in somber colors. There's some black, but also lots of gray and dark blue. I keep my head down. I can't bear to look anyone in the eye. Papa keeps his arms around my shoulders.

         Old Padre Tino speaks. The words I shared with Shaya and Salvador the night before the Games recur. "I am the resurrection and the life."

         Salvador's mother and grandmother are relatively stoic. Shaya's mother appears about ready to throw herself down into the sea. I wonder, for the first time, if our dead are buried up here for precisely that purpose. (It's because the sea rises, I know that. It's because of the chance of flooding in the lowlands of the district- which are most of them.)

         Papa and I are among the first ones to leave. I'm sure the Current and Chavez families prefer it that way.

         "Keeping the old god talk to a minimum, I hope," Peacekeeper Benett remarks to us as he passes us on his way up to the cemetery to make sure the rules about public assembly are followed. He's not going to kick out the families, but everyone else has a finite time before they're allowed up there before the gathering is too large for too long and in violation.

         "Everyone is in compliance, Peacekeeper," Padre Tino addresses him, hobbling along behind us.

         "Oh," I turn back toward him, "Mr. Neska. Let us help you."

         Papa takes his former teacher's arm.

         I am part of the last group of children who even think of him as "Padre Tino." No one can call him that publicly since the revolt was quelled. And, understandably, kids can't be trusted not to slip up and say it. In any case, Peacekeeper Benett has been here five years and knows basically what kind of person Padre Tino is now, just like he knows that Papa is just about the same type, but Benett lives up to his title. He doesn't want any trouble. He has to receive official orders from higher-up the chain of command before he'll instigate anything.

         "I'm sure no one is in compliance more than you, Tino Neska," Benett laughs, "And now, while you know I don't take bribes, I am hoping that I might receive an Exchange Day gift from you this winter."

         "It's a bit early for plans, but I think I'm giving out herb wreaths this year," Padre Tino wheezes.

         "You're my witnesses," Benett has to look down to make eye contact with all of us and now he catches my eye, "You'll hold him to that, won't you, Miss and Mr. Gaudet?"

         "Well, if I remember it," we part from him, "I have a lot of things on my mind, you know."

         "You're too young for men from other districts!" Benett calls after me.

         "What's this now?" Padre Tino asks.

         "Nothing at all," Papa dismisses it.

         We walk the padre home and I stop at Michella's flower stand and arrange for condolences bouquets to be delivered to the bereaved families.   "Win or lose, you're good for business," Michella remarks.

         I already paid for the flowers at the funeral. Whatever flowers were employed in the celebration of my victory, someone else covered the costs. Either way, Michella is doing good business.

        

 

         Papa is his typical understanding self. He listens to me talk, but he doesn't ask much. Nothing about Jack beyond remarking on the shirt he gave me. "Do you think they'll make these of everyone now?"

         "Maybe?" I didn't give it much thought before. "If there's a demand, I suppose."

         "Hmm."

         Other people aren't going to be the same as him.

 

 

         "So," 'Lito says, and somehow I'm sure that he's said these exact words to me before, "Jack Umber."

         If he wants to press on further with that, he's going to have to be the one who does it. "Yep, Jack Umber," I echo him. This part of the weaving I'm working on is particularly tricky, so I keep my head down and eyes on it.

         "Y-you like him that much?" 'Lito's voice cracks.

         I look up. He's blushing. "Uh…" I hesitate. I'm not going to lie, but I have no desire to treat my friend's heart roughly either. It's hard to talk about feelings.

         "N-nevermind," he waves a hand through the air and dismisses it, "I know you do. It's okay. We-we're still friends."

         "Of course, 'Lito." He and Faline have been the closest to me and the easiest to interact with within my age group around home ever since my Games. I have no desire to spoil that.

         He stands up and looks toward the horizon. "You want to go out in the dinghy?"

         "…All right." "The dinghy" is a beat-up rowboat one of his father's customers let him have a few months ago. 'Lito and some of his friends made it seaworthy again, but just barely. Papa's out on his own boat now, working. I write him a note in case he beats me home "Out in the dinghy with 'Lito. See ya later."

         We row out of the harbor toward the glades, taking it easy without any particular destination in mind.

         "You looked really pretty on TV at that Eight girl's party. I like it when you wear those stars."

         "Thanks."

         "We all missed you while you were gone during the Games."

         "I thought about everyone here." Papa mostly, but Faline and others too. "Anything interesting happen?"

         "Not that you weren't part of. Everybody was real worked up about Salvador. Since he made if so far, you know. We thought he…you and he might do it."

         "However hard they said on TV that Pal worked, he really worked even harder." I lean on my oar. We drift with the tide.

         "You like him pretty well too, huh?" 'Lito reflects.

         "We're friends. Pretty much all the other victors and I."

         "…The guy with the huge glasses?" 'Lito presses me, "…Wacky Emmy Pollack? The sleepy guy from Six?"

         "Beto and Emmy and Teejay," I concur, "In their own ways."

         He grins. He thinks he's got me now, I can tell. "Luna Vetiver," he allows her full name to trip luxuriously off his tongue.

         Yeah, he's got me. "No, not that one."

         'Lito laughs. "Ha ha ha, aww, even Mags can't win 'em all, I guess."

 

        

         I'm not sure if Papa told my youthful hangers-on to leave me alone for a while or if the depressing reality of returning to another year of losing both our tributes has chilled their regard for me, but no one comes around that first week back who wouldn't come around anyway (just 'Lito, just Faline).

         When Faline comes around she brings a funny piece of bamboo bent into a circle and some colored twine she's trying to wrap around and stretch across it like a net pulled taut across a frame. "I thought maybe you could help me," she offers her supplies to me.

         "What is it?" It seems a little big to wear as a piece of jewelry- though if she's copying something she saw from the Capitol size is probably a moot point.

         "Well, it's supposed to be something called a 'dream catcher.' According to the show, they're from District Nine? It was that Sophie lady in One talking about it. On Style Spot. The president's daughter was wearing one as a hairpiece at Silk's party. They think it's going to get popular, along with whatever District Eight stuff shows up on the new victor."

         We go upstairs and sit on the floor of my bedroom. The sun's strong influence is mitigated somewhat by the pale green curtains. "My mom says they were popular here once before. Around when she got married," Faline continues. "They called them "nightmare nets," she said. You're supposed to put it over your bed so none of the bad dreams can get in." She pauses there, significantly, and just looks at me with her pretty, round eyes.

         "I'm not sure I can do this if I don't know what it's supposed to look like," I admit, though I have managed to wrap Faline's strings a bit tighter around their frame.

         "You do it the way you like," she encourages me. She pulls her knees up to her chest and leans her head on them, looking at me sideways. "After the net, it should be decorated too. With feathers and beads. I think I want to put some sea glass beads on it."

         "Silk, you know, she asked me about you."

         "Huh, really?" Faline wrinkles her nose.

         "Yeah, I was surprised too. She seems really nice."

         "They showed you sitting with her at the big table with the president."

         "When she comes here for her Victory Tour, I'll try and see if you can meet her," I grin. It seems like it would be a pleasant encounter for both of them.

         "…I won't be upset if you can't. I know you're not promising. You can't do half the lovely things you want to. Even though you're a victor."

         My face falls a bit. But I can see it was mainly false bravado in the first place once I stop and examine it. I'm going to have to force smiles for a while to get through the worst of it. "Thanks, Faline."

         "You're welcome, Mags."

         I hold up the dreamcatcher. "…Uh, how's that?"

         "Well, if you're happy with it, then I am," she straightens back up, "I was making it for you."

         "Oh," I lower my hand.

         "But I still want to decorate it," she smiles, "I think I can make it really pretty."

         She's wonderful. Maybe I have already done the best thing I will do in my life by saving her. Maybe it's ridiculous to think that I can manage anything else. …But even if my moment has passed, it doesn't excuse me from continuing to try. "I look forward to when you're done then," I hand the dreamcatcher back to Faline.

         She gets some thicker colored thread from her basket and begins wrapping it around the outside of the frame. "So, is he nice to you when you're together?" she asks me about Jack. "Sometimes when I see you on TV or when he's talking about you, it seems like he's making fun of you."

         "He doesn't mean it to be cruel, I think. It's just what he's like. Or, uh, what he wants people in the Capitol to think he's like."

         What I said, or maybe how I said it, brings a funny smile to her face. Her lips quirk up in a way that only partially reveals her teeth. "Oh, you _do_ like him then."

         "Sort of inexplicably, but yes."

         "I want to meet him then too!" She considers the possibilities, "But, of course, I suppose I probably can't. …He'd have to mentor a winning tribute to come out here, wouldn't he?"

         "I imagine."

         "Of course, if there were a good television reason for him to come here, you never know!" I imagine she still considers it improbable, but the idea amuses her.

         Jack would probably enjoy the way she thinks.

         "I'll try and make you a dream catcher too," I decide. "Victors certainly aren't the only ones who have bad dreams."

        

 

         Rodrigo is the first of my…group? Class? Clueless admirers society?- to come back around. And is that telling? I'm sitting on the porch working on the dreamcatcher for Faline when he shows up. I think about telling him how Gerik and Hector guessed he's going to volunteer next time around, but decide against it.

         "Hey…" he sits down on the step below the one I'm situated on, "Che and I were wondering if we were still allowed to come around sometimes and stuff. You know, if you don't mind."

         "If you still want to come, you can still come." Somehow I think their number will be reduced, but it's not going to hurt any of them.

         "Oh, good. Good."

         I carry on looping the thread over and around the reed frame I wove to make a pattern. Rodrigo watches my fingers at their task.

         "Salvador was really great out there," he says, testing to see how I'll react to this statement.

         "I'm proud of how he held together under such tough circumstances. He went really far. I…had a lot of hope."

         "We were all rooting for him."

         The front door opens loudly, when it can open quietly. "Hey, Rodrigo," Papa greets him.

         "Hi, Mr. Gaudet."

         Papa stretches his arms over his head and groans at some unpleasant sound from one of his joints. "Aaah," he sits down beside me, "I'm starting to get old."

         "You're not old yet," Rodrigo laughs, "Maybe you want to say that so your daughter will have pity on you, but he let some of us come over and watch at your house, Mags, and when it got late and he thought we were getting too rowdy, he came downstairs hitting a fishing rod against a frying pan and scared us all out."

         "Papa!" I regard him incredulously.

         "It's not like there are any neighbors to upset out here," Rodrigo notes.

         Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

         "I told you kids I was going to try and get some sleep. I couldn't be expected to let you sit up making noise over the endless commentary and statistics and updates all night."

         "Your dad is so much like you," Rodrigo grins at me.

         "Meet me on the beach below the victor houses tomorrow morning," I tell him, "You and Che and whoever else wants to come. It'd be nice to go swimming."

         "Hmm," he gets up, "Sounds good. I'll let everybody know."

         "Oh, wait," I think of an additional detail. "Hang on a minute," I put down my current handicraft project and go in the house. I come back with a bit of cash in hand. "Give this to your mom to buy some of her sandwiches for our lunch."

         Rodrigo counts the money. "How many? The lunch stand might owe you some change."

         "Ten, I suppose," I shrug. I am down one former comrade. I can't say that I'm sure ten people are going to show up, but I am sure there won't be more than that. If there are leftovers, I don't doubt someone will be willing to take them home though.

         "There's still going to be a little-"

         "Tell your mom to keep the change."

         He accepts this judgment and puts the money in his pocket. "See you tomorrow, Mags."

         I don't sit back down into he's several yards off down the main path that runs between the empty victor houses. Papa is looking at the dreamcatcher. I wonder if, in light of their supposed popularity here a while back according to Faline's mother, he knows what it is. "So…a fishing pole and a frying pan?"

         "I had to hit the pan with something that would make a lot of noise."

         "If we had neighbors, you'd be bothering them more than any visiting kids."

         "I can't wait until we do."

         Just because I know what he means doesn't stop me from indulging in a little joking. "Because you never bothered the neighbors back in town, wanting to save it for bothering some other victor all this time. …Of course."

         "Of course."

 

         I am the first one down on the Victors' Beach the following morning. There's nothing really surprising about this. I live above it. Everyone else has a bit of a trip.

         There's a nice breeze. I walk barefoot in the sand and do some stretches.

         'Lito arrives next. This is also unsurprising. "Oh," he observes, walking a circle around me, "He signed your shirt."

         "He sent it to me like that." To me, at least, my not having asked makes a difference. There's still a lot I don't understand about Jack. There are lots of things I don't know about 'Lito, but I don't think understanding is so much of a problem there. "…I think you've grown a bit since these past Games."

         He smiles. "It's just I suddenly straightened up after that last reaping- so much weight was taken off of me."

         I start laughing. That's a good one. "I suppose then that serves as only more proof that I'll always be short."

         When Rodrigo arrives with Che and the sandwiches and Faline follows soon after I'm glad but not surprised. Five of us. And Che wasn't previously promised. This is okay. This is about what I expect.

         I get more. I receive an overabundance of trust and kindness. There's the sound of young laughter above the beach and then of sandals flapping against the wooden steps leading down from the elevated area of the victor houses to the associated beach. Jerrick and Estelle and Maria have returned- and there's a fourth with them, another boy.

         It's Zeno Icaro. Peterzeno Icaro, to be more precise. He's one of Padre Tino's students. The youngest one. He's thirteen, I think. Or fourteen now?

         One member of the group is lost to us through death. If I try, I can imagine him still here. Strange that I probably got to know him best in his last few days. Salvador's ghost clings to me now. And Shaya's. Beanpole's. And no matter how many ghosts wrap around me, they will not keep me warm.

         Two prior members of the group, Slip and Tack, haven't returned. Tack turned eighteen, which might've done it for him. For Slip, just fifteen, the reasoning must be different.

         "Hello, Mags! Where do I pledge my official sign-up?" Zeno greets me.

         "There aren't official sign-ups, Zeno," Faline tells him. "You just feel like hanging around so you do."

         "Oh," he nods thoughtfully. He has blue eyes. There aren't a lot of blue eyes in 4. I can't remember back to a time when he had parents, but one, or both of them perhaps, probably had roots in another district. "I came because it sounded fun," Zeno says next. I sort of doubt it, but if anyone here is going to know how to dance around the edges of matters to avoid Capitol scrutiny, it's bound to be Zeno, heir to an illegal study (under Padre Tino) that he is.

         "Happy to have you here, Zeno," Rodrigo shakes his hand.

         We pointedly avoid talking about Salvador and have a fairly pleasant time, swimming and playing a ballgame in the water and eating the sandwiches Rodrigo's mother provided. The addition of Zeno to the group seems good for other spirits besides mine. With him arrive other topics of conversation. He thinks he might have a friend or two who'd like to come play around as well.

         After lunch we disperse for the day. Since it's not a school day they may be free to come around for a while, but my friends still have homework and chores and work in several cases. Rodrigo helps his mom run her stand. 'Lito is almost a full employee now at his father's boat shop. Estelle does extra studies with Dr. Haddock as she means to become a nurse ("Maybe a doctor," she says sometimes, "Maybe if that's not too much harder" - there is, of course, no medical school in 4- before the fences our people went to study such things in 3 or 6 or the Capitol; now they must apprentice like the majority of us).

         Faline stays behind with me. "I finished my homework early so I could," she explains.

         "Thanks." I'm glad. A week out from the Games and I'm not ready to be alone for long yet.

         We got back up to the house. Papa is working. We turn on the TV and poke fun at the Capitol's number one soap opera, currently running a plot featuring a thinly veiled Jack Umber caught up in a romance with the president's daughter. The fake president's daughter is played by the real president's daughter. I wonder if it means anything.

         Sophie Varen's program comes on. We won't be snide about that. Since meeting her, I am rather fond of it. It's a special edition today. "Oh," Faline observes quickly, "She's in the Capitol."

         "Today, a surprise guest and I will be visiting some of the Capitol's hottest date spots," she smiles magnificently, then tilts her head and leans toward the camera, "I guess this is as close as most of us are going to get to actually dating him, so let's get ready to put our daydreaming little hearts to work, shall we?

         "Traveling with me today is…"

         Faline says it- guesses- at the same time as Sophie: "Jack Umber!"

         I can't say this is exactly a surprise, but my brain still sticks at this enough that none of their introductory banter registers as anything but cheerful noise.

         I am at once rapt and unnerved. Sophie and Jack visit an aquarium, some kind of grill your own meat and vegetables restaurant, a butterfly park, and an ice cream shop, though they also discuss a variety of other locales of note.

         "He's going to ask you on a date," Faline predicts.

         I don't debate it because I'm sure she'll be right on that matter as well.

 

         I think it's partially because of the time difference from the Capitol that it's late when he calls. "Will you come visit me? I've already run my request through the proper official channels and had it approved. At this point it's only up to you."

         What if I don't want to? Will it hurt his feelings? Will Nar or somebody call me up and urge me to change my mind? What about this worries me?

         I hit upon one possible point of concern. "Will we be on camera?"

         He inhales a deep breath and that's answer enough, but: "Not to film my show or anything, but it really is impossible for any victor to visit the Capitol and not be photographed a bit. I already agreed to let them take some footage of us walking around somewhere public in exchange for making sure you're not pestered for the entire length of your visit."

         "…that's what it's like to be a victor, huh?" I consider it. Every last inch of your life and privacy is open to bargaining for. The coverage of me that's occurred at home hasn't felt very intrusive. After the first Parcel Day, I barely noticed the cameras on those that followed. I was too busy enjoying myself watching the happy people. Maybe I just don't command the amount of interest to warrant such probing attention.

         It's different for Jack.

         "What kind of visit? How long?"

         "Well-" I can imagine the smile creeping back onto his face as he says it (he thinks now that he has me- that I will agree). "I thought you'd just spend the day with me, but because of the travel time involved you might like to spend at least one night here too, before or after, at a hotel or with one of your friends maybe."

         "Oh…" Would that be fun for Apple or Aulie, or would I be imposing?

         He chuckles. "Admittedly, I'd have no problem with you staying with me, but I don't think you'd want you'd want to have to deal with the way it would make people talk."

         He's right about that. "…when are you free?"

         "The day after tomorrow. The day after that too. Later than that, I guess I have to check my calendar."

         I steady myself. "The day after tomorrow," I tell him, "I'll be there. Tell…I don't know. Whoever's supposed to know. Where will I meet you?"

         "I'll come to the train station."

         "How will you know when I'll- Oh. They'll let you know."

         "You don't have to worry about missing me at least."

         No. I won't have to. As long as my eyes are open, I will never miss him.

         The following morning my decision leads me to some embarrassment as I mention my upcoming brief absence to Faline and 'Lito (separately, and on 'Lito's part partially so he has time ahead so he can think about whether he'd like to do something with Rodrigo and the group in my absence) and some slightly less embarrassing giggling as I get in touch with Aulie, who would, of course, be delighted to have me over not just the night after, but tonight too and by showing up at a time Jack isn't expecting me, "we'll show that Jack that we can handle these comings and goings just fine."

         Worst is telling Papa. Not that he'll mind. I've always known I did something really bad if it actually upset Papa. But this isn't like casually hanging out with someone I kind of like for a little while after school. I can't just go- of course I have to tell him. But…it's a date. It's definitely a date. In a city I don't, and can't, perhaps, really know. With a boy who-

         He isn't just some boy.

         He's a grown man now, who was a boy who killed five other kids on live television.

         "Umm," I broach the subject over Papa's scraping a spatula against a pan as he fries some fish he caught while fishing recreationally among the rocks off Victors' Beach early this morning, "I got invited to the Capitol. I'm going to take the late train out tonight…and I'll stay with Aulie. Tomorrow night too, but then I'll head right back."

         "Is it for business?"

         Not really? "For fun."

         Obviously I don't hide my hesitance well. He looks at me over his shoulder. "Who invited you?"

         "Jack."

         "Do you think that'll be fun?" Sometimes I wish he weren't so good at being neutral. If he were in my place, what would he do? Does this seem like it'll be fun or some sort of publicity stunt fiasco?

         "I'm not entirely sure. …but no one was making me. I decided to go on my own." Despite the plans I've made, in a way, I am still thinking it out. Setting aside the issues of what other people might want from me, I wish I had a better idea of what _I_ want.

         "Well, I hope that you do have fun. You try and enjoy yourself there, okay?" That's the best idea I'm going to be given of his own thoughts unless I ask him about them directly. "…Do we have any lemons?"

         "Right over here," I go to take one out of the basket. "Is there anything you'd like me to look for for you in the Capitol?"

         "I can't think of anything."

         The lunch he cooks is particularly good. I pack for my trip. I don't want to trouble any of the few people I know have cars to give me a ride, so we start out early for the train station together. I notice 'Lito hauling some cans of paint out of the general shop back towards his father's workplace, but avoid catching his eye. The issue of my relationship with Jack lies a bit awkwardly between us since the kiss. Seeing as I continue to feel awkward about it myself, I can hardly blame him.

         "We have one passenger today?" the stationmaster examines his digital tablet when I arrive. "Oh, ah, yes," he confirms for himself, "I see you're scheduled here."

         "I know it was kind of short notice."

         "For us in Four, maybe, but for the trains, this kind of thing happens all the time. Why don't you take a seat?"

         I follow this direction and Papa sits with me as well until the train arrives. He gives me a hug and stands on platform watching as the train pulls away.

         The car I'm stuck in is very nice. I learn that it's a generic one they send out to pick up victors for visits to the Capitol. I'm not allowed to wander the train freely. I have to stay in this car. "'Bout half of this is just transporting cargo," I'm informed.

         "From Four?" Couldn't be all that much, because the stop there didn't seem long.

         "Eleven mainly. We just received the instruction to pick you up on the way back."

         It makes sense. I can plot a rough estimate of their route from that.

         I pick a meal off a menu then eat it while watching a movie about a princess in a country that probably doesn't even exist anymore. It's not like all the land that used to be Europe is gone, but whatever's out there now, they weren't telling us about it in school. Whether it's true or not, I prefer to think that there are at least a few other countries out there still. Nicer ones, I hope. Who would want to think that the only place left in the world was Panem?

         After the movie I settle for some inane celebrity news programming. Silk is dressed in a typical District 8 manner again, although her clothes are more colorful than those of the average factory employee. She even has a scarf back on her head. She's showing the interior of her partially decorated house to a reporter, while Pal follows along behind her smiling and nodding intermittently. He looks to have recovered his health.

         Silk seems to be in good spirits. She's looking forward to 8's first Parcel Day. "I'll get to feed my dorm mom after all those years of her feeding me," she quips.

         I notice a sewing machine and prints of birds on the walls and a quilt that, based on its color scheme, has Pal written all over it to me.

         Back at the station, the main newscasters also comment on her favorably. There's a high degree of satisfaction with our new victor. I have months to wait, but I do look forward to seeing her during her Victory Tour. It's impossible to imagine she would be an ungracious guest.

         There's one part of victor life I haven't experienced yet. The visit of a newer victor. I think I've been through the hardest parts now- not to say that I'm not going to keep going through some of those hardest parts over and over again, but…

         (bringing home a victor is easier than not bringing home one, right?)

         I wonder vaguely if someday there will be so many other victors that they'll start to run together for me. Or if I won't see in my mind the instant replay of something that happened to them (or something they did) during their games. …Or if I'll get so old that I won't understand any of it anymore. I'll forget their games, my games, what all of us did, everything will wash away…

         The thing about remembering is, even if it'd be nice to forget, I shouldn't. None of us should. Remembering is the job I have tasked myself with. I must do it for myself and in the place of those who can't.

         I'd think I was going crazy with all these weird thoughts if I weren't able to remind myself that I thought lots of crazy things before my games too.

         …I'm not crazy.

         Not yet at least.

         Onscreen, the victor gossip of the day turns to Jack behind the scenes of that travelogue program with Sophie. They are comfortable with one another, as I've come to expect. Their TV personas, at least, are very compatible. The commentator jokes about Jack being rich and popular enough to balance a few different girls, but too conspicuous to pull it off- "Unless his District Four sweetheart is too busy out on the boat to be watching much recreational television, that is!"

         …It would probably be better if, between the two of us, he had feelings for Sophie. They're closer in age. They're from the same district. Even if our experience as victors unites Jack and I, is that really something you want to share and be mindful of every day of your…

         As if I could possibly get further ahead of myself.

         From someone I see roughly three weeks of the year to every day.

         I arrive in the Capitol to find the natural sky gone dark, but the station lively and the sky filled with lights. "Always traveling light," Aulie notes, picking me up with one arm and my suitcase with the other.

         "Over the top!" I pretend to complain about his handling of me.

         He doesn't set me down until we're directly in front of his vehicle. It's probably for the best for keeping attention away from me. At least one person still snaps a picture.

         It's easy to have a wonderful time with Aulie. Back at his place he makes us some fancy coffee drinks and we talk and paint each others' nails (he asks about what I'm going to wear tomorrow to make sure they'll match it all right).

         His home is large, but empty. Aulie answers all my questions. He's thirty-six. He had a younger half-brother and half-sister who died in the war. They weren't combatants. They were sixteen and thirteen. They are the sort of people the Capitol purports to be avenging with the Games. Funny, then, how Aulie seems not to have much against us. (how quickly, in other quarters, how revenge has turned to entertainment?)

         He's never been married and doubts it will happen. He doesn't expect to ever have children ("Oh, goodness!" he laughs, "Can you imagine?!"). He has a pet gecko though.

         Nar calls the house about my early arrival, but Aulie does all the talking and never hands the phone to me. I get the impression he's being a bit difficult for the Victor Affairs man with his assertions that, "I certainly must top the approved visitation list!" and "You can't honestly be worried about her safety when she's here with me." Whatever it's all about, Aulie wins out in the end though, as far as I'm concerned, by keeping it between him and Nar.

         "I've never had an actual boyfriend," I tell Aulie, trying to decide what it is exactly about this subject I mean to convey- to broach something of my unease with all this that I can't really get into with my father or anyone else I know (I have the suspicion that I could probably talk to Pal about it though and feel alright- I can't say why- but he's got to be busy still with Silk and could I really bother him over something like this?).

         "I'd only had one at your age." A bit of teasing seeps into his smile, "…But he was the same age as me. And he wasn't famous. Wasn't quite such a looker either."

         "Aulie," I roll my eyes.

         "I can't say I know what it is that's bothering you most, but, yeah, I know it's not the same with everyone watching you. …But after that surprise kiss at the party, I do think you have it in you to go toe-to-toe with Mr. Publicity Stunt."

         "That's part of the difficulty… Y'know. Does he like me that way or are we just playing one another?" I shake my head. Do we just carry on with a game of flirtation until people forget how pretty Silk is or our smokescreen is blown away as useless?

         Suddenly I remember a brief bit of interaction I witnessed between Jack and Aulie during the last Games. I'm curious. "…How well do you know Jack?"

         Aulie lets out a small, wry laugh. "Longer, but certainly not as well as you."

         "Oh." I think my face falls. "Just from working at the Games together?"

         "During the Second Games, we were- all of us involved in coaching that is- we were all just enchanted by him. You know- he was so charming and sweet and little-seeming and he'd just ooh and ah over everything we showed him."

         "I didn't know you'd been working the Games that long."

         "Since the very beginning. For coach-types, that was the Second Games. We weren't assigned to specific districts at that point- we were the ones working the little training set-up. A supplement to the escorts, you know? After the First Games, about half the initial escorts quit- the ones who didn't were the cruel ones- the ones who were openly glad to bring children to their deaths. So I guess you could say the details of the Games system were really in need of a lot of ironing out yet at that point."

         "I see." This is informative, but also seems a very strange conversation to be having. I can't quite get into the Capitol mindset regarding the Games. At least when it's about revenge, I can understand, but the moment it goes beyond that, it…just doesn't line up right with my way of thinking. "…So you all liked Jack?"

         "Well, you know as well as anyone that he's good at making himself easy to like."

         "Yeah…" None of this really addresses my personal issues, but it's interesting. It adds some layers to the things I'm turning over and over in mind.

         "You'll have a good time tomorrow." Aulie's sure of that much.

         I appreciate his optimism. I will push myself to embrace it as much as I can.

         I sleep very well considering I am in a strange place with strange events looming before me. This is a testament both to my easy friendship with Aulie and how wonderfully comfortable the borrowed bed is in his guest room.

 

 

         "You slipped in ahead of plans," Jack laughs that morning over the phone, "I rather feel I've had one pulled over on me!"

         "And you're having a better day because of it?" I guess. That's hardly the tone of someone who's feeling put out.

         "I like it when you're feeling tricky." I can practically imagine him winking on the other end of the line. Would he do that, even without anyone there to see it, just to make sure he achieved the proper playful sound? "So, in light of that, when would you like me to come pick you up?"

         It's not a question I'm prepared to answer, though you'd think it should be. Just- no one has ever "picked me up" before. If I'm going to do something with anyone back home, I go to their place or we meet up somewhere. If the Capitol needs me, their schedule does the deciding. "Umm," I look over my shoulder at Aulie, "When do you think?"

         "How about ten o'clock?" he suggests.

         That goes over fine with Jack.

         Then I get ambitious. I turn to Aulie once the phone clicks off. "Is there somewhere around here I can buy flowers?"

        

         And that's how I have a whole bouquet ready in my arms when Jack comes to the door to collect me.

         Behind him are two men with small portable cameras and one of them starts laughing uproariously at the sight. "Oh, for Panem's sake, get a grip, Notion," his colleague scolds him.

         "Hi," Jack grins.

         "Hi," I echo and hold out the flowers, "These are for you."

         He scoops the bouquet out of my arms and inhales the fragrance deeply. He looks so happy. I think it's real. …And I want to be happy just like that.

         "Thank you! You're so thoughtful."

         The cameras are rolling as we make a little initial small talk- me much more awkwardly than Jack, of course- and Aulie says goodbye and to have a good time and he'll see me in the evening, but none of this will air without running past some editor first, so I don't quite worry about being perfect because I'm not in control of what they'll show or how they'll show it anyway.

         "I was thinking we could go to the butterfly garden, if that's all right with you. I have a feeling you'd like it."

         It's funny. "So you really were scouting locations you could take me when you went all over with Sophie."

         "It's the gentlemanly thing to do, isn't it? To go investigate a bit? I don't really date much and the places I ordinarily go don't seem all that special," Jack leans his arm up against the back of the seat of the car.

         "You have to remember that I've barely been in the Capitol for anything but, uh-" he knows I means the Games, so I might as well not say it, "Work, you know?"

         He nods. "Hmm, that's true. You haven't had a lot of time for anything else. Your schedule's really just opened up now, hasn't it? I guess our timing was good in that regard." He taps his fingers on the stiff black fabric of the seatback.

         "Yeah…" I mumble back, "Good timing."

         He lets float a light laugh at this sort of private joke and I wonder again about the timing in this. About whether it means anything for anyone who isn't some nonparticipating recipient of our good deed from District 8?

         The bouquet jostles slightly up and down on his lap as we ride. Unlike back home, we have no reason to be concerned the flowers will dry out unless put in a vase with some water soon- they were sold to me in a package meant to keep them moist just like that for several hours.

         It takes a little walking around in front of the gates to the butterfly park before I loosen up and stop thinking so continuously about the cameras. The women working the ticket counter are open in their amusement as they watch me pace about, throwing inconsequential comments back and forth with Jack until he finally thinks I'm acting myself enough to get going and buy the tickets. The cameramen are taping all of this anyway.

         We pass through the gates and stroll along the weaving little paths of…polished rocks, maybe, they're colorful and very shiny, through the interesting mix of plants, many of them unusual familiar to me and most of them flowering. Butterflies flit casually here and there, heading for flowers or seeming to merely float listlessly in the air. We talk idly about plants, which aside from the most generic ones everybody knows we don't seem to have much overlapping experience with, and things we like and a little about some of our mutual acquaintances (though even when we touch on Pal, we avoid Silk in a way that's hopefully not too pointed).

         We wander into a more open area. There are planters with wide edges meant for sitting on and some kind of spritzer-ish machine that sends little puffs of…some kind of perfume? A sweet-smelling chemical into the air that must attract the butterflies. "Just watch this," Jack says and pauses on his meandering way.

         A butterfly lands on Jack's shoulder. It's an amazingly bright turquoise color. Most of the butterflies here appear to be that color- not white with spots or a muddled yellow like back home, though they do appear to have the black and orange ones I know and others in similar variations. Another drifts down and alights on Jack's bangs. He keeps his head still, but turns his eyes up to look at what little of it is visible from his view. "Well," he laughs, and raises his hands, managing to collect a few more within a few seconds, "Apparently I am also popular with butterflies."

         My partially open smile strains wider with incredulous humor.

         In a moment, their preference for him dissipates as they begin to land on me too. Even the largest ones are very light. Now I do laugh, though I try to stay relatively still. I don't know how best to behave around butterflies aside from very cautiously.

         Until this point other visitors at the garden have politely kept their distance from us, but now Jack calls over a couple wearing matching hats and asks them to take our picture with his phone-device-thing. The woman with the deeper colored red hair (her companion's is more pink) nearly drops it in her nervous excitement over interacting with us. "I think you make a very nice couple," she tells us.

         "We'll definitely be wishing you all the best," the pinker-haired woman chimes in.

         Jack jokes around a little with our well-wishers and offers to let them take a picture with us, which they're happy to do. Afterward, they move on and we sit down on one of the planter edges. "I'm going to guess it's not too forward of me to hold your hand?" Jack asks.

         "I think not." I feel like I'm practically daring him.

         So he holds my hand and I haven't the smallest complaint about that. The butterflies sprinkle the area, going about what must be an ordinary day for them and landing on and taking off from both of us every so often. Jack tells me some stories about his various adventures in being on television- funny anecdotes about people he's met and tacky things he's done. I reply with some fishing stories because they're the most interesting thing I can think of, although I'm still concerned that they won't seem like much to Jack. But when I try to qualify them with those concerns, he brushes all my worries aside. "No, tell me all about it. Your stories are so different."

         "Oh, well," I begin another one.

         He's attentive and asks questions about the parts he doesn't understand- about the names of fish in some cases and others about the process in general. "How do you know what to do when?" is the gist of many of these queries.

         "Lots of practice," is my main answer. Also: "Asking my dad."

         "You can go fishing in the Capitol," Jack tells me, "But it's- obviously it's not on the ocean. There are special ponds and lakes stocked for this purpose. You can rent the equipment and go out and fish. I think some let you take the fish home and some are catch and release. …I have a feeling it's not as challenging as what you do."

         It sounds pretty par for the course for the Capitol. "Did you ever go fishing back in One?"

         His brow knits at the memory of some past annoyance. "Not much and not successfully."

         I don't pursue it. "…you've gone fishing in the Capitol, though? On one of your shows or something? I feel like I have some kind of recollection of that."

         "Oh, I did it with Hector when he came on his Victory Tour." Jack leans over closer to me, "You remember that? I'm never going to get over some of the funny things you remember."

         This doesn't seem like the right time to tell him how important I think remembering is, so I just give a little shrug. He kisses my forehead and it's possible that my face goes as red as a ripe tomato considering how it feels, but I try not to make too big a deal about it.

         …though, considering I am staring straight into one of the cameras now, I am probably not coming off all that calm.

         I break eye contact with the lens. "How about lunch?" Jack asks, squeezing my hand.

         I give a smaller squeeze back. "Okay," I agree. It comes out in the tiniest little voice I can imagine that's not a real whisper.

         Jack doesn't start laughing until I do.

         In a way, it all feels very unreal.

        

         We have lunch at small restaurant that still has what seems to me to be a ridiculously large menu. Jack even manages to convince the cameramen to sit down and eat with us. It relieves some of the weird pressure inherent in the situation because they're part of experience now themselves, not just professional voyeurs.

         "See," Jack assures me over the fancy paper menus, "I picked this place because it'd be cozy but I knew there was pretty much no way you wouldn't be able to order something you liked. I don't have you pegged as the picky type, but food in the Capitol can veer a bit different from what you expect back home."

         The cameramen, encouraged by the way Jack has drawn them into things, ask me some questions about my general tastes, then give me suggestions for what I should order. I sort of appreciate their input in narrowing down my ideas. Even the array of drinks is close to dizzying. "Strawberry soda," I tell the waiter.

         Jack orders some kind of ridiculous thing- a root beer float. The floating part is ice cream. "Extravagant," even the pug-nosed cameraman agrees with me.

         "It's a special occasion," Jack counters.

         "I guess that's true for me too," I allow. The strawberry soda is amazingly sweet and bubbly and pink.

         The rest of lunch- a salad with slices of mandarin oranges in it and the softest piece of bread I have eaten in my life- is equally interesting. Jack gets the cameramen to confirm some details of some of his wilder stories. They, in turn, ask for some further information about some of mine. One of them takes a few notes for the benefit of the studio. They take a token amount of footage of Jack and me eating together and smiling and all, but it doesn't interrupt the fairly ordinary proceedings that make up most of the meal.

         Afterward, outside, they're interested to see if they're going to get a "goodbye" kiss for the viewers, though they're fully aware that it's their time with us and not our time together that will be ending soon. I feel pressured by the situation and acquiesce to share just a tiny peck.

         Jack sighs when we part from them. "Not that we're completely out of the public eye now, but that's a relief." His straight posture relaxes into something of a slouch. "Mags," he looks down and meets my gaze, "If you're with me, don't ever do something you don't want to. I won't let anyone give you a hard time about it. Just be yourself and I'll take care of everything else."

         "It wasn't because of you," I want to be sure he understands, "I think I'm just not used to this type of…performing for people, I guess. Because, uh, I liked seeing the flowers and butterflies with you. And eating lunch. And just talking. It's really nice to get to be around you without worrying about the Games."

         "Well, I-" Jack pauses. Some color has risen to his cheeks. "I thought I should say it anyway. Better safe than sorry. I just- I want to be the kind of person you can trust."

         He touches his hand to my shoulder, almost as soft as any of those alighting butterflies. "O-okay," he gives an awkward laugh, "This is going to sound weirder than it should've after saying that, but would you like to come back to my place for a while and spend a little time away from the public's prying eyes?"

         "Ah, sure," I assent. I know he means it in a completely ordinary way, but it's true that he's colored his intent slightly by how it was prefaced.

        

         Jack, when he lives in the Capitol, it turns out, stays in an apartment at the top of a tall and empty-seeming building. I don't notice anyone once we're inside, but, inevitably we're noticed going in and I can't imagine it doesn't go un-amateur-photographed and unreported, but on some level, it's actually a kind of funny thought.

         As usual, riding an elevator does something to render my balance bit off. I can't tell if leaning against a wall makes it better or worse. "Do I seem like the kind of girl who'll shell out on a first date?"

         "Does that mean what I think it means?" Jack's eyes narrow and his lips draw back to reveal a grin that seems surprised and maybe mock-scandalized.

         "Well, uh," I stammer. I can't think of any other way to put it so Jack will understand that isn't more straightforwardly, err, rough than I can bear to say.

         "I'm going to take that as a yes unless you tell me otherwise," he decides. The elevator stops at the top floor and opens up with a small, mechanical ding. Jack steps out and into a hall area taking up only about as much space as necessary. Only one door leads off this hall and he takes a ring of keys from one pocket and unlocks it. "And, no, you don't seem like that kind of girl," he tells me, still facing the door. It opens inward. He looks back over his shoulder at me, "Do I seem like that kind of guy?"

         I should've expected that, but my laugh comes out prefaced with a surprised snort anyway. "I have absolutely no idea!"

         "I guess you'll find out then," he waggles his eyebrows.

         "This is the part where Apple would tell me to turn around right now!" I teasingly warn him.

         "Yeah, and that's exactly what you'll do, because you always do just what Ms. Smitt wants from you!" He passes through the doorway with an exaggerated dance sort of jump. Ballet-ish, I think (my entire knowledge of ballet comes from just a random television program seen here or there).

         "I'd be kind of curious to see what she'd say…" I remark, more to myself than Jack because I'm sure I can imagine what she'd say if I left at this point, but what her response would be if I _were_ that kind of girl… Something about how she didn't know me as well as she'd thought she did?   Would it make me seem more Four-ish in her eyes or more Capitol? And which would she prefer? There's something nice about the idea at least of how she'd let me know. She'd _definitely_ let me know.

         I follow Jack inside. His description of the place as "big" was an understatement. It's…spacious. It doesn't seem apartment-ish to me. It's like a little house of its own on top of the building. The furnishings run in two general directions- simple and colorful. All the bright yellows and reds and greens seem in keeping with Jack's personality. If there's anything here that should give the place a particular District 1 vibe, then I don't recognize it. It's just a home in the Capitol that Jack has adapted to suit himself. …and that's Jack in a nutshell.

         "Sit wherever you like," he advises me, making a generic sweep of the living room with his hand.

         With my typical posture of awkward politeness, I perch on the very edge of the couch. Inevitably, in a few minutes I will relax, but as a starting posture this is yet another thing that is par for the course.

         Jack sits down in a chair sort of catercornered from me instead of joining me on the couch or moving it around the low table to face me directly. He puts the flowers on the table. They look about as fresh as when I picked them out. "Thank you again for the lovely flowers. And for agreeing to come out and see me."

         "Thank you for inviting me. I'm not sure I would've been able to figure out what I should do to try and come here to see you. …Or for any other reason, really."

         "Well, it's not a guarantee that just wanting to come will give you the opportunity," Jack explains, "But the thing you should do is contact your Victor Affairs person- Nar, right? You call him up and tell him what you want to do and for how long and such and he'll get it run through the proper official channels. If someone who lives in the Capitol wants you out here for some reason that can be a factor. They more clout they have, the more likely it'll be granted. But it doesn't have to be like that. If you just want to visit things…the aquarium or the butterfly garden or something…well, there will probably be cameras snapping your picture and people who want to talk to you and such, but they'll probably okay it. It's better for them in some ways if it looks like victors are happy in the Capitol."

         I slip back into a more comfortable position on the couch. It's good to learn these things for future reference.

         "You have a good reputation, which will work in your favor when it comes to going where you'd like to go," he notes.

         "You mean I follow the rules," I clarify.

         "Yes…and, also, you're not unpredictable." I must look confused because he elaborates. "I mean, it's not as if there have been any specific issues with Luna or Emmy breaking the rules, but neither of them is allowed any visits to the Capitol that aren't highly monitored. In Emmy's case, it's probably for her own good, but for Luna, it's that she's been ruled somewhat untrustworthy…"

         "I get the feeling the powers that be give her a particularly hard time," I admit.

         "Maybe it wasn't quite accurate for me to say she hasn't broken any rules," Jack reconsiders, "Because in the Capitol she's been reluctantly obedient, but after her victory there were a lot of problems with her back in Nine. I'm sure you didn't hear about it much, if at all, and I only did because of being in the Capitol, but there was a lot of discord in Nine when Luna came home and she was considered a major instigator of it."

         He's right- it is news to me. "Rebellious stuff?" I ask.

         "Not in the sense of anti-Capitol really. Some kind of internal Nine stuff. I get the impression any rebellious actions of Luna's are pretty independently taken. She's not on the same page as the malcontents back home."

         "It seemed really quiet in Nine when I went there."

         "Heh," Jack sighed, "The day that ordinary people get away with acting rebelliously during a Victory Tour…" He trails off. "Anyway, I'm sure you know how it is. They vet the people allowed to interact with you. Not that there aren't occasional deviations from the planned schedule."

         "Kayta," I suggest.

         We laugh.

         "In all seriousness though," Jack advises me, "Don't try to pull anything like that when Silk comes through. There may have been nothing but a reprimand at the time, but the people in charge aren't going to forget that Kayta did that."

         I won't be like Kayta. First off, I wouldn't have the nerve. I also probably don't have the means, seeing as I don't drive or anything like he does. "He seems like he mostly does what he feels like…"

         "Yeah, and he doesn't listen to me about how it's going to boomerang around at him sooner or later."

         And the longer it waits the worse it's going to be- that's what Jack's thinking, right? A funny smile breaks across my face as I consider the context in which we're having this conversation. "…This is a weird thing to get into on a date, isn't it?"

         "Yes and no?" Jack considers it, tilting his head a bit to the side. "It's hardly standard date conversation, but it's a normal part of our lives. We're not on a standard date and we don't have normal lives." …He thinks he's so clever when he says things like that.

         "I'm not complaining, of course. I'm glad to be able to talk to you about it. It's really helpful to me all the stuff you pass on. …Oh," I remember something else, "I'm not sure I thanked you for the t-shirt. It was nice of you to sign it for me and all."

         "Of course- you're welcome. Now, if you ever get anything like that made up, I hope you return the favor."

         Having switched over to lighter topics (though still not without their questionable implications), we talk about other frivolous things. A lot of time passes without feeling like very much time at all. It occurs to me that I should probably be getting back to Aulie's place so we can have dinner together. I ask to use the phone to call up Aulie about getting me back to his place, but Jack rings up the agency that drives him around instead and offers to take me back in his own way (as a district citizen, he explains, he's not legally allowed a drivers' license).

         "They're located pretty nearby, so they're always fast," Jack says. We head back downstairs to wait, though we linger in the lobby of the building rather than going out onto the sidewalk. I suppose not just anyone is allowed to come out and pester him there.

         We stand side by side, not touching, but very close together.

         "I've never had a boyfriend," I tell him in the interests in full disclosure. "I've never really wanted one."

         He doesn't seem to find this notable in the general context of me, but he does give a thought to what it means between us. "Don't feel an obligation toward me," he decides on.

         "No," I hesitate, "Well. It's not." How do I put this? "You're not." What am I trying to say here? "You're different. I like you." What that means regarding things like boyfriends and girlfriends I don't know, but it's the honest truth. I like him very much and there is something a bit nerve-inducing in this.

         Jack, as usual, has an easier time saying what he wants to say than I did. "I like you too," he agrees. "…You make me laugh."

         "Seems to me like you're almost always laughing," I am caught up in things and quip in reply.

         His response to this is exactly as anyone who knows even a little about him would expect- more laughter, though there's a gentleness to it that I wouldn't say is his usual mode. "I like to laugh," he tells me, "As much as I can. I try not to let them take that away from me."

         What has Jack lost since his Games? His innocence, in a way. Every victor has lost that. His privacy? To a greater degree than most of us, I think, though at least a part of that was given knowingly to the Capitol in exchange for living more of his life there. …Something I can't understand, perhaps. Something he doesn't let the rest of us see.

         "May I call you sometimes at your home?" he advances the conversation a little.

         "If you want to." I can't see what would be bad about it (although I'd better remember to be on my best behavior because there's no way a phone call between two victors doesn't receive some kind of monitoring-- all our phone calls do probably).

         "You can call me too," Jack offers in return, "But I can't say I always know where I'm going to be- here or back in One. …I'm not entirely in control of it…"

         A car pulls up, very like, but not identical to, the one we rode in earlier. Jack accompanies me back to Aulie's place, but doesn't get out of the car when we arrive there, ostensibly to avoid attention, though I'm sure the neighbor I see peering out between his curtains will be able to guess who's leaving me off soon enough even if can't quite yet. Jack gives my hand a squeeze before I go. "Take care of yourself, Mags," he sends me off, "See you around."

         "S-soon, I hope," is my reply.

 

         Jack's car lingers as I walk up the steps and ring Aulie's doorbell. He's watching, I suppose, to see that I get…"home" safely.

         I can hear the sound of loud feet inside as Aulie hurries to let me in. "Well!" he exclaims at me before I'm even through the door, "It was as wonderful as I guessed it would be, right?"

         "Maybe it was even better," I tease, trying to act coy.

         "Ohhh," he closes the door behind me, "I think it was about what I imagined."


	12. Part III, Chapter II

         I return home to find the date I went on has already been remarked about on TV- of course. In a way then, Jack and I are accomplishing exactly what we set out to do. The more rings there are to this circus, the more divided the focus of the Capitol public is, hopefully taking pressure off those among us in more difficult positions.

         There is both sanctioned footage and amateur photography and comment on both our official date and our visit to Jack's apartment. Fortunately, the stuff I see while spending time with Faline isn't the sort to leave me too embarrassed.

         "I wish I could go there," Faline sighs over the butterfly garden.

         It's hard to come up with a response to that. She'd better off if she never receives the opportunity to go there (and this is quite a theoretical consideration to begin with, because for her to survive the Games I can only imagine what both she and I would have to do, even setting luck aside), but I do think she'd love it…

         "Anything about Silk that I missed while I've been busy?" I ask instead.

         "Not that I've seen." She thinks on it a moment, "Oh!" she brightens, "It's not about Silk or anything, but there is something for you to hear about."

         "What is it?" I haven't the slightest idea what the subject might be.

         "Zeno brought someone new to the beach with him yesterday."

         From the way her eyes light up and the particular sort of smile on her face- one I have to admit I don't really know- I think I can guess a few things about this person, even if I don't know their specific identity. "Zeno's kind of a go-getter, huh," I muse.

         "It's a boy I'd never met before," Faline goes on quickly without my actually needing to ask her anything else, "From way down-District. He's my same age and he seems really nice. His name's Reza." She pauses, suddenly embarrassed as she realizes how obvious her crush-ish level of interest in this boy is.

         "It's okay," I try to be encouraging, "Tell me whatever you want about him. Maybe then when I meet him I'll seem all supernaturally amazing and knowledgeable."

         That's good enough it seems as a signal of my approval. "His dad came here from Five before the fences went up- he was some kind of engineer there so he teaches math at the down-district school. He's got reddish hair and he's all tan like anybody else, but he has blue eyes, Mags."

         I can understand her interest in this. Blue eyes aren't all that common here (though with Zeno, I suppose that makes an unbalanced percentage of two in our small company- apparently to Faline though, Zeno is just Zeno).

         "He brought a skim board with him and we all played around with it after lunch. He's got good balance. …I really hope he decides to stay and be part of the club."

         "I do too." Our reasons are sort of overlapping. I certainly hope Faline's interest in Reza works out pleasantly enough for both of them.

 

         And the next day that we all meet up I see that the new boy has come back for a second round. "Hola!" He shows up with Zeno and rushes to introduce himself to me with some overeager shaking of my hand, "I'm Reza Surfjan!"

         "The amazing Reza Surfjan," I reply, "Your reputation proceeds you."

         "Q-que?" Reza laughs, possibly confused about how far I might go in teasing him, "My reputation?"

         "If you ever had the slightest thought that 'Lito and Faline aren't completely in it to tell her absolutely everything of interest that goes on around here please re-adjust your perceptions," Zeno informs him. I'm glad that he doesn't outright lay this at Faline's feet, even though it shouldn't be a hard leap to make when the odds are fifty-fifty.

         "It's good," I reassure him, "When I heard what I heard, I hoped that you'd be back."

         "Yeah…?" He looks down at his toes, digging into the sand, "That's funny… I wanted to meet you and you're telling me you're happy to meet me."

         "Shake hands then, Amazing Reza!" I laugh and offer mine.

         Everyone else laughs too as he doggedly goes for it.

         Reza Surfjan is mine, I think, for at least a while.

         We settle that day on some distance swimming. When we come back in and rest Zeno gets the boys riled up into a sandcastle-building competition and the girls sit with me and chat. Maria has a crush on the postmaster's errand boy, Rey Ruiz, and this fuels some additional interest on her part regarding things between me and Jack. It feels funny for anyone to be asking me that kind of thing.

         "Mags, you're the only one who's ever had a boyfriend!" Estelle puts it into perspective, "I guess you're going to have to lead the way there too. We're just those kinds of girls!" she seems embarrassed and puts her hands over her face.

         "Thank you for being even super nicer to Reza than you usually are," Faline adds. Estelle and Maria laugh.

 

         The post-Games part of the summer is a good season despite the the impressive heat and the humidity that makes my hair puff out large and wavy whenever it's not tied up.

         I pick away at improving my talent and even go out with Papa and his men on the boat some days when I don't have any other plans back home or with the training group (but Shuun Kappe, one of the hands, says my presence is pretty distracting- "It's a compliment as well as a complaint, I guess, but I had to tell you directly, miss. I can't tell Captain that." - so I probably won't be making a habit of it).

         I go to meet 'Lito when his shift ends at the boat shop and we take his dinghy up one of the inlets into the mangroves. It's lazy weather and I stay out longer than usual.

         When I get home, Papa is on the phone. I don't believe I have ever seen him on the phone before. Who would he call? I'm left to assume that someone else called and Papa answered. It's strange, so I stop and listen. "I know she's tough enough to survive anything, but she really cares about you," Papa says. Either he's not aware that I'm back or he's so invested in what he's saying that he's not going to change his words or tone anyway.

         "So all I can ask of you is that you don't approach her in regard to anything without the sincerest of intentions," he goes on.

         I freeze up, stiff. He's talking to Jack. He must be.

         Papa's voice ebbs down to a string of short responses: "Yes. I know. You do? I see."

         I relax enough to step forward into sight, but it feels like my heart is still beating unnecessarily fast. I raise a hand in a small, not-too-interruptive wave as I come into his field of vision, but Papa seems cheered by my appearance. "Mags!" he smiles, "It's Jack."

         I hustle along in response to his call.

         "Hello, Mags."

         "Hi, Jack. …I was out."

         "It's okay. It was nice- talking to your dad. There's definitely a…family resemblance? I'm not sure if that term quite works in this situation, but he does seem similar to you. I started to get the feeling that I know what kind of mom you'd be…"

         My grip tightens around the phone. Something about that is awfully embarrassing. "How's the weather in Four?" he inquires. "It's hot? Is it really bad?"

         "It's hot, but it's normal hot. It's like this every summer."

         "So 'it's too hot back in Four' can't be a reason for you to come visit me?"

         "Jack!" I laugh, "If you want me to come see you, you can just ask!"

         "Not for any special reason," he goes on (I can tell he's trying not to laugh in return), "Just to see each other. I mean, not specially for the cameras."

         "I'm going to take that to mean that on your end you're not seeing people give Silk a hard time either." It's a worthwhile thing to hear what with the way I incited all this to sort of cover for her and that Jack is privy to more, uh, media coverage than I am, if not more actual information.

         "Considering she's only two months out of the arena, I'll pinch something I heard once on a broadcast out of Eleven- 'just peachy.' Pal must be driving the reporters crazy though the way he manages to horn in on all the coverage. I imagine in any other circumstances it goes against every fiber of his meek existence. Have you seen? How he comes out and stretches some gigantic robe he's working on in front of her. It's pretty ridiculously blatant."

         "I've seen him do all the talking, but I haven't seen that."

         "He's been in the Capitol too, making deliveries and such. I think he's still paying out on all the promises he made to get Silk that sponsor money."

         "Well, if he did it all with clothes orders, it's no wonder he still has more to do. I get the impression he spent a bundle."

         "If you come out here I can't say you'll see him- he always turns around fast to get back to Silk- but he did ask about you."

         It's a pleasant thing to hear. "You know. Pal and I are friends."

         "And you and I are-" Jack plays games.

         I ignore it. "So you want me to come and visit you?" As seems to be normal for me, I have a variety of hesitations, but in the end I do call in to Victor Affairs and ask if I can come up. Nar gets tricky and connects it up with a meeting with a couple of publicity people for Crispco Crackers first who are pretty kind about the sponsorship stuff, as well as interested in perhaps having me appear in some commercial, an offer I am not about to turn down because I anything as easy as that that will keep people thinking nicely about me and, hopefully, District 4's tributes as well is a worthwhile use of time.

         While I'm involved with Crispco Cracker business I miss a chance to see Pal passing through on another errand, which is a small disappointment, but Jack, picking me up in the business district, reminds me that we're almost halfway to the Victory Tour anyway and I'll even get to help host Pal and Silk on my own home turf then.

         Jack takes me to the aquarium I previously saw him visit on television with Sophie. Some small children on a trip with their mothers recognize me and laugh and point to see me hurrying about this way and that to look at the fish, but no one else bothers us (as someone moderately well-known, I don't consider being simply looked at as an intrusion).

         There are fish that I'm familiar with and when my knowledge starts to peek through, Jack encourages me to tell him more about them.

         It's not until we're walking through an immense hallway with a curved ceiling- the aquarium stretching all the way over and around us and I jerk to stop at the shadow of a car-sized shark that I realize I am holding Jack's hand. Our casual grip breaks apart as he finishes the step that I was unwilling to take.

         My eyes are fixed to the shark as it passes overhead. I doesn't even notice me, I'm sure, but. But my knees are weak and my palms are beginning to sweat.

         I briefly note that Jack looks at me and doesn't seem to understand. He doesn't protest though. He hooks his thumbs into the corners of his pockets and his head tilts back to follow my gaze. "Ohhh…" he comprehends.

         It's not real- it can't be- but I can imagine I feel my foot throbbing. I force myself to take my eyes off the shark as Jack tries to meet my eyes. "Are you all right to walk through here? Should we turn back? I'm sure I could carry you if I had to."

         "No." That would be embarrassing. I would have to be in a situation a lot more troubling than this. "No. I'll be fine. Just. I'm not interested in looking at these ones. So let's walk through." I take a deep breath. "But fast."

         I don't run. I try to move in a…business-like manner. But when I get through into the next area, a comfortingly normal room filled with jellyfish, and turn back to see Jack nearly two yards behind me I am not so sure I accomplished to maintain even that tentative level of dignity.

         Jack, when he catches up with me, doesn't laugh or comment on it, but bemused being one of his typical states of being, I can't say I feel he's being particularly sympathetic either.

         I don't want to think about the sharks any longer than necessary though, so I try and put it behind me as we peer at all manner of strange jellyfish. Jack doesn't try and hold my hand again and I don't reach for his.

         I don't want to make a big deal out of my visiting and I don't suppose Jack does either (everyone's got to want some time not intentionally in the public eye, right?), so it's just a day visit, but on my way home, dozing on a train as the sun dips low, Aulie puts in a call to me while traveling (the member of the train staff who has to deliver this call to me seems rather surprised over it). "You didn't even drop me a line," he pouts at first, but doesn't give me time to respond to his mild complaint before instructing me to turn on the television to a particular channel where, lo and behold, there's a rather amusing photograph of me eating curry rice at the aquarium cafe.

         "So, was that dish any good?" Aulie asks, despite the fact that this is surely not the smallest portion of his point in contacting me over it, "Because it looks good. Apparently you enjoyed the aquarium? Jack was telling Sophie Varen you could give a guided tour to the fish of District Four there."

         "It was…good curry," I say stupidly, listening as whatever inane host this program possesses remarks on how "charmingly quaint" I seem to remain despite my ongoing proximity to Jack and the Capitol. The mating habits of certain sea creatures are joked over. "…So, Jack was on this?" I press Aulie, "He talked to Sophie about me?"

         "Not on this one exactly- earlier in some other segment apparently but I didn't catch it until the replay here. …I figured you would want to know."

         "I don't," I struggle to decide what it is I really want to say, "I don't understand Jack as well as I'd like to."

         Aulie doesn't have a real answer to this and even when I'm home I don't have it in me to call up Jack and ask him about it. No one's been hurt by it. I was just caught off guard. Maybe there was even some tactical reason.

         The first thing I do when I get home is sleep because it's just about two in the morning.

         "I like him," Papa says over breakfast.

         "Who?" I rub my eyes. We've barely gotten past 'good morning' and 'how would you like your eggs?' so I hardly think it's strange that I don't know what he's talking about.

         "Jack," he clarifies, "He's very friendly. But, also, he's thoughtful too. More than you realize from TV, I mean." His face crinkles up and I think he's going to start laughing.

         I laugh first. "That's true," I agree, "He is."

         With my "blessing" of sorts to it, Papa starts laughing too. I try to set aside the ongoing unknowns of Jack's behavior and just enjoy that the open parts- that he's nice to me; that he makes me laugh.

 

         I go try to move back into the ordinary rhythm of my days as seamlessly as I can manage. Faline cheerfully accepts the gift of a free pamphlet from the aquarium I brought home. I even see it sticking out of her book bag several weeks later. She thinks about the Capitol and what I do there a lot, I think.

         School starts back up on its regular schedule and I don't see quite as much of her as the summer gave me. Tylina invites me to her wedding to Jose Cresta, the family's only son (there are also three daughters). It's a small, but pretty ceremony. It's nice to go somewhere and be ignored. Tylina Cresta is radiantly happy. Azzie is her right-hand woman throughout the ceremony and party. When the two of us sit down to talk during a break from the dancing, I find out that she's engaged now as well. She catches me up on the doings of some of other classmates. Most of them are doing more or less what I expected they'd be doing post-graduation based on what I saw them do or heard them talk about when I was still in school. Saigo Kanno's already been promoted into a pretty good position on the shrimping boat he works on (his wife is very pregnant, according to Azzie, who still lives near him, and they think it might be twins).

         Although I have the strangest job of everyone, I can't say I feel my forward motion into adult life is all that arrested. I didn't have any plans or expectation of living away from Papa or getting married at the time I volunteered for Faline. …maybe that made me an especially appropriate choice for the part- what sort of future did I stand to lose? It makes me wonder what Beanpole wanted for his future though.

         "You look sad," Azzie notices.

         "I was thinking about Beanpole."

         "…He would've been trying to act like he knew what he was doing in the dances and just messed up and smiled, all red-faced and embarrassed." Azzie obviously remembers him well. "No one would care but Beanpole. It's just supposed to be a good time."

         "Excuse me, Azzie," 'Lito slides between several empty chairs to reach us, "Mags, do you want to dance?"

         "There's your cue!" Azzie encourages me to get back up.

         Dancing with 'Lito isn't like dancing with Jack, although I have fun here too. These are the music and the steps of home.

         I stay late and 'Lito sails, then walks, me home. On the doorstep, I think he wants to kiss me, but he doesn't ask and I don't offer.

 

         Autumn falls and slowly deepens around us. It's a mild storm season. Jack calls occasionally. I make two excursions into the Capitol, but they're both basically for business, though I see Apple on one and Aulie on the other.

         On a third trip I go on television with Sophie Varen and play up the role of 'conservative district girl' all shocked by the various things we go to see. It's not quite me, I think, because even though these party spots aren't part of my life, they don't shock me. It's even funnier to watch Sophie play this angle though, because she's been around this stuff for ages.

         Afterward, we sit in the studio's 'green room,' which is not green, and Sophie chats with me about this and that, which, considering the spread of things the two of us have in common, inevitably means things turn toward Jack. He was out in 1 on a date with the president's daughter, apparently, but I missed the coverage. Showing everyone that things with me aren't such a big deal? That he can go out with whoever he likes?

         "The thing is," Sophie gives me her take on it, "I don't know, maybe it's not obvious to people who don't know him, but to _me_ it's impossible to think that he likes doing things with her as much as he likes hanging around you."

         "Hmm." I hope it's just Sophie. I don't want the president's daughter taking any special notice of me. I don't want Jack getting in some kind of trouble.

         I change the subject to: "What do you think of Silk?"

         "She's kind of adorable," Sophie manages, a tense sort of calm in her tone, "…She's not very popular in One, of course. We almost had a new victor."

         "…Would it be bad to ask for your personal opinion?"

         "Considering it makes no difference now," she shakes her head, long, blond hair swishing back and forth across her shoulders, "Between the two of them, I do think I like Silk better."

         "I think I like her a lot."

         As the time for her tour approaches, Silk begins to dominate the airwaves again.

         I have no objection to watching Silk's Victory Tour. They have finally "closed the gap" the programming commentators say, to have the initial airing of each stop's Tour footage air the night that stop was made (this way, those of us present for the entirety of Silk's stop in 4, for instance, won't miss the coverage of her visit to 5). Actually, I find viewing it far more fascinating than any I have seen before and pay close attention to each day's required segment of it. Silk seems sweetly pleased by most of the things that she sees. She's incredibly gracious (though with only two kills to her name, it may be easier to pass through the outlier districts without an over heavy burden of guilt laid over her shoulders) and is largely possessed of such poise as to render the memory of my visits as ungainly as a seal on land.

         "Oh, your other cousin," Papa jokes, attaching her to the idea I suggested about myself and Pal, "They were always my favorite niece and nephew!" He settles down beside me on the couch to see them arrive in 10. "…He watches her like a sea eagle."

         "I guess he doesn't feel that she's secure yet," I venture. I can't blame Pal for being so protective. I'd probably be acting the very same way if that were me with Salvador. On some level, I'm jealous when I couch Salvador as a potential part of this. He was so good. He did so well. "I mean, it's not as if her life were in his hands now, but she's still his responsibility through the Tour."

         It would be hard to talk to Papa about my specific concerns about some of the public interest in Silk, so I don't bring it up.

         Emmy doesn't call Silk "May" or any other wrong name like she did me. Silk is Silk and Pal is Pal, even if she says "Pal" with a kind of funny twang in it.

         To my eyes, at least, nothing Silk is shown doing in 10 is troublesome. She takes part in the sanctioned activities with ease.

         I fall into a sort of pattern, caught up in my meager chores around the house and other, more leisurely, tasks during the day, but hurrying to always be ready for the official evening showing of the Victory Tour.

         In 9, Luna is cool as ever, but more cordial with Silk than she was with me. Neither Pal nor Silk seems to be of special interest to her. A decent portion of the citizens I see onscreen verge on familiar to me. The pool of people in 9 willing to play a cheerful part on Capitol television may be a bit small compared to the district's actual population.

         On the afternoon of the day Silk's visit to 7 is schedule to appear, I meet up with 'Lito, because it's his half day at the boat shop, for lunch and some pointless boating. The boating part seems to be a necessary part of the equation (this kind of thing does tend to happen among kids-people?- our age when you know someone with their own boat).

         I supply the lunch and 'Lito supplies the boat, as well as more than his fair share of the manpower. Of course, we really only row off to somewhere sheltered that we can drift without much concern.

         "I don't think your friends make it look as fun as you did," 'Lito observes.

         "The Victory Tour?" I laugh, "You think? I guess I'm not one to judge, but watching them is interesting to me."

         "You were all caught up while it was going on, I guess." He leans back and trails a hand in the water.

         'Lito doesn't quite get all of it- the Games and all- but it's not any particular failing on his part; it's just the general understanding most ordinary district citizens have of the Games and the Capitol.

         I'd rather talk about more mundane, local things with him. Our conversation lolls about, circling around the boat shop and his work there, with diversions to anecdotes involving mutual acquaintances and fishing stories.

         I go home to watch the showing of this newest visit with Papa. District 8 is skipped over to save 'til the end, as per formula. There appear to be significantly more Peacekeepers in 7 than I remember seeing on my visit there. Kayta makes some cheeky remarks, but there's a stiffness to his posture that makes me think he's not being allowed the leeway to even try something like he pulled last year with me. Raisin kisses Pal's cheek over the dinner and Kayta rolls his eyes drolly into the camera.

         That's when he flashes the camera a bit of gold, taps Silk on the shoulder so she'll turn and look at it, and grins as she gasps in delight, tiny hands jumping up to cover her open mouth.

         "Raisin," he moves behind his girlfriend's chair and calls so that she's look at him. "You know I'm not the type for the flowery, poetic stuff, so I won't waste anyone's time. I'll stop dragging all of this out. If you're ready, I'm ready. You want to get married?"

         "Kayta!" she knocks the chair over backwards in her hurry to get to him.

         The answer is an obvious yet. "Oh, wow," I say.

         "They've been a couple from before he won, haven't they," Papa recalls.

         "Raisin- she's really sweet," I add, which is sort of my agreement to his statement.

         "You think they'll make it?"

         Together, he means. I don't hesitate with my answer. "They will. If anyone can, Kayta and Raisin will."

         Silk is cutely pink-cheeked watching all the excitement and kissing. Finally, she just buries her face in the loose fabric of Pal's shirt, and he pats her shoulder. "When will the wedding be?" Pal asks the local lovebirds.

         "Spring?" Kayta half-suggests, half-asks his wife to be.

         "Spring would be nice," Raisin agrees.

         "And, in lieu of more traditional weddings presents," Kayta looks to the camera, "I think Raisin and I can also agree that the best gift of all would be sponsorships for District Seven's tributes in the upcoming Games."

         "Another victor in Seven will keep Kayta from being over-worked," Raisin laughs, clinging to his arm.

         "Oh, that's tricky," notes Papa, "Your friend Jack will go crazy over that showmanship."

         "Probably as you speak." Assuming he wasn't in on this in advance to one degree or other. …that's a harder thing to speculate about. Raisin seems pretty shocked and giddy and Pal and Silk are also responding in a manner I'd consider to be more or less off the cuff, but Kayta, understandably, had all of this cooked up beforehand. On his own, I'm leaning toward, but that doesn't mean he didn't necessarily tell Jack.

 

         From this point forward, the coverage of Silk's Tour shares space with the attention being given to Kayta and Raisin- regarding their relationship, preparations for their wedding, marriage and family traditions of 7 and the like.

         A box and an envelope arrive via Victor Affairs the day Silk visits District 6. The box contains a green tunic top for me to wear. I guess as the outgoing victor, I still have to maintain some semblance of stylishness. There's a note in the box from Apple that maintains: "My favorite color! I picked this for you out of all the things Erinne had sketched; I hope you like it."

         It's pretty subdued, despite Apple's tastes. I can't say I have any complaints about the garment. And, as it's not a full outfit, but just a piece, I can wear it with my own jeans and sandals or whatever seems appropriate.

         The envelope holds some rather extensive final directions regarding Silk's upcoming stop in my home district. It makes me a bit nervous to think there's this much I need to know just to be a good host. I don't have the slightest intent of causing any trouble. I read over everything and hope that I won't do anything stupid a little editing won't cure.

         In 6, I'm impressed by how… _alive_ Teejay seems for Silk's visit. He's considerably more on than he was during my visit or any other time I've been around him for that matter. Sunny looks understandably cheered by this.

         "I feel sort of at home here," Silk tells them, pointing at the smokestacks of the factories, "The big buildings."

         "We're not so used to being out in the open," Pal agrees.

         At the dinner, Teejay folds up a piece of paper into some kind of fortunetelling game (I'm not familiar with it). "Chatterbox!" Silk exclaims, recognizing the funny-shaped thing.

         "Chatterbox?" Sunny echoes, "…we always called it a whirlybird."

         "What's the question then, Teejay?" Silk props her face up with her hands, elbows resting on the tabletop.

         The way the program is cut, I don't get to hear what he's made this fortunetelling game up about. The next shot of the table is from a distance as they play, Teejay moving about the sort of…four pointed paper…boxes (?) that he's made while Silk giggles.

         In a bit of follow-up commentary on the trip that same night, after Silk and her entourage have moved on, Teejay's eyes are glassy and distant again. Sunny can be seen, out of focus, in the background, frowning as he talks to whoever is wielding the camera. "She reminds me of my sister," Teejay gesticulates vaguely, in a manner that doesn't exactly add anything to his statement, "Prettier than my sister, but… You know…?"

         Sunny's comments are both more coherent and more standard.

         I sit up reading through some of the Victor Affairs papers again.

 

         Silk looks like a little sunflower in District 5, her dark hair like the seeds at the center of one of those bright yellow flowers. She darts about cheerfully enough, her equally bright yellow scarf trailing behind her, as Shy takes her on the particular tour of the district that they've mapped out for her. Pal wanders after them, observing things with a degree of bemusement- I think he's remembering his own Tour. I'm not sure how much things have changed in 5 since then. In 4, I don't think there have been many changes someone who visited only twice would see.

         The good mood Silk seems to have been enjoying wears off when she comes up onto the stage in their town.

         Silk killed the girl from 5. She bites her lip and her brow furrows as she looks at the dead girl's picture, then leans over to whisper something to Pal.

         Silk killed that girl and then put the glasses back on her face.

         A woman in the crowd wearing those same sort of glasses is sobbing openly and the tears are falling onto the head of a squirming toddler in her arms.

         But Silk presses on with the speech they want her to give and the people in 5 accept it for what it is. "She's going to be here tomorrow," I state the obvious to Papa.

         "And yet you don't have to be doing any work in preparation for her the day before?" he wonders.

         I hold up the packet that arrived for me in the mail just a few days earlier. "I've already read through all the rules I'm supposed to follow."

         Papa squints. "That looks thick. What's in all that?"

         "Can't talk about this, can't talk about that, avoid this, avoid that," I shrug, "You know I'm going to try and be good. I don't want to get anyone in trouble."

         "So there weren't more instructions in the box that came, right?"

         "It was something for me to wear. You know, since I'm the one who proceeded her, I'm kind of 'passing the torch' and all."

         Over the district banquet, Pal whispers something to the local headman (passing on what Silk said to him?). "People sure are something," replies Chief Engineer and Mayor McRonsenburg (Shy's "Mac," right?), and it seems like something he said to me maybe, but I can't remember that kind of detail. It's the only thing he says at the banquet that I can pick out in the clipped cut of it we get to say. I don't hear Pal say anything at all.

         Papa turns in early. "Gotta be rested up for that little girl."

         "You're gonna try and meet her, Papa?" I laugh.

         "Well, if I put on my best shirt and a clean shave and try to get into the square for the crowd speech, you figure they're gonna let me, right?" he smiles earnestly.

         "Oh, yes. The powers that be would certainly never turn down a victor's father." …But then again, maybe they would like to treat Papa nicely and let him appear in the crowd. Among the other victors, are there any others with living fathers? Not Silk, not Pal, not Emmy, not Shy, not Jack, not Sunny… Maybe Luna?

         "You better get to sleep soon too," Papa says in reply.

         "Yes," I promise, "I will."

 

         So the Victory Tour comes to Four. I was already informed about the potential events and locales we might visit beforehand as suggested and or approved by Victor Affairs. While, undoubtedly, Victor Affairs is a necessary office, I am gradually coming to find them somewhat…unsavory overall.

         I don't get to meet Silk and Pal at the train station. I have to follow my instructions and meet them in the decorated square. I can't stand to sit, so I pace back and forth across the stage. I smooth my hands over the hem of the roughly knee-length tunic that was chosen (made?) for me to wear. Like my victory dress, it's shorter in the front and longer in the back. It's a soft green tone and I'm wearing it with a plain pair of brown pants. Underneath I am wearing my swimsuit, just in case, since the ocean itself was okayed in the information I received as a possible "activity."

         When I see our arrivals coming I step up to the edge of the stage and shade my eyes. My anxious toes curl over the rim of the platform. Some cameramen, already installed in the square, sort of laugh at me.

         And then there's Silk. She jumps down from the vehicle, light as a feather, her loose sunflower-patterned dress billowing out around her. "Mags!" she yells to me, waving as she runs up, "Hi!"

         She's so friendly to act like this when we've only really just met. I don't expect to ever have to alter my general impression of her as a lovely person. I won't ever forget how she asked about Faline during her victory celebration at the president's manor. I hope I can find an opportunity for them to meet. Faline has already been okayed to sit with us during the evening meal, but that doesn't necessarily mean she'll get to be close enough to speak with Silk.

         I jump down off the stage and hold out my hands toward her. I expect her to take them, but instead she runs right into my arms and hugs me. She squeezes me tight. She is close to my height, but so much tinier. She is so young.

         "The ocean really does smell like salt!" Silk exclaims, "Mags, I can already smell it! Are we close?"

         "Pretty close."

         "I'd like to go see it. I, um," she pulls at the top of her dress, stretching the fabric away from her skin to show me that she has a light green bathing suit on underneath, "I heard I could go in the water a little?"

         Pal is beside us now too, though his smile is somewhat crimped by, I don't know, pain or generally being uncomfortable. Maybe because, though swimming is harmless fun (though I don't think Silk knows how enough to try it in the ocean and will probably mainly just wade), he has no desire to put her into yet another situation where she will be lightly clothed for the enjoyment of the public. It was part of his gambit. He did it to save her and there's no doubt it was a successful strategy. But it's beyond his control now. He can't stop it. Silk still seems innocent and unknowing about all this. Should I worry for her?

         "Of course you can," I say, trying to remain casual. Obviously Victor Affairs okayed that. I don't know exactly what continuing to show Silk in this light will gain them, but I suppose it may just be an ongoing part of giving the audience what they want (which, where I'm concerned, means interaction between me and Jack these days). "It's fun."

         "You look well," Tosca greets me as the camera people keep their lenses attuned to Silk as she takes a deep breath of the seaside air.

         "And yourself as well," I agree. "Thank you." If she's here, I figure she's still happy with her job, so I have nothing to ask about that. I could ask about her brother, but I pass on him as a subject too.

         Tosca orders everyone around just as she likes and while nothing in particular is being staged, I take the opportunity to put in a request of my own. "Can someone take a picture of us for me?" I ask a familiar-looking member of the film crew.

         "Sure," he agrees, "Do you have your own camera or something."

         I shake my head, a bit embarrassed. "No, I didn't think of that."

         "That's okay. It's not like it's going to be hard to figure out where to send it to you."

         Both of 8's victors agree to oblige my desire for a photograph. A part of my mind drifts to my own Victory Tour and my conversations with Sunny. I promised to remember. A photograph will help.

         The cameras flicker back to life as I lead her down toward the beach along a pre-decided path.

         "Aaah, this part doesn't smell as good," Silk laughs as we tour her through a segment of the fish market on the way to the beach. "Sorry," she apologizes to the fishmongers caught on camera, "I don't mean anything against fish…"

         "It's an acquired taste, I think," Pal replies, "…And smell." From his expression, I don't think he's enjoying it much either.

         The ocean air rushes up to greet them though as we leave the displays of fresh caught fish behind.

         Faline, Che, Rodrigo, and 'Lito are waiting on the beach south of town, sitting in 'Lito's dinghy that he's pulled up on the sand, following up a bit more blatantly than I expected on my tip that this is the beach it was suggested Silk visit. They come closer to the touring group than any of the other onlookers, who keep a more respectful distance up on the pier to the northeast and the rocks to the southwest, although none of them approach so close as to bother or speak with our visitors.

         The District 8 escort stalls out at the edge of the sand, anxious about how her tall heels may sink down into it. Tosca laughs blatantly and allows the rest of us to leave her behind. I see Mrs. Mirande and Papa materialize out of the onlookers to offer some bit of kindness to the Capitol woman.

         Silk readily sheds her outer clothing on the sand and dashes down to the tideline in her green bathing suit. I kick off my sandals and Pal halts to remove his more carefully and roll up the ends of his pants.

         Down beside the ocean, our voices are cloaked by noise. Silk tiptoes out into the water, shrieking in excitement exacerbated by the wear and tear of so much travel and stress with the minimum of moments for rest in between. I wade out after her and Pal follows timidly. I think he's a bit afraid. There's no reason he shouldn't be, I suppose. There is nothing like the ocean in District 8 and there was nothing like it in his arena either.

         "Well," Pal forces a smile as he watches Silk, "I'm glad she's enjoying it more or less as much as she expected."

         "Don't worry," I reassure him, "It's calm today and I'm trained to save swimmers if there's any problem- so are a bunch of the other people around here. You'll both be safe."

         "In Four we will be," Pal breathes, "I know that. I know. But back in the Capitol…ah, well. During the Games, I made a lot of promises for her sake and I've honored all them as I understood them."

         "You should tell Victor Affairs if people are giving you trouble," I suggest, frowning.

         "People think they're owed more than I promised," Pal stares down into the swirling water.

         "Aren't you coming in any further?" Silk yells back to us.

         Silk has braved waters that reach to her mid-thighs. Pal and I are standing where the tide weaves in and out around our shins. "M-maybe a tiny bit," Pal hesitates.

         "I'm coming!" I call out in a loud voice, putting on a show of good spirit for Silk, for Pal, for everyone who will see this. I double back to the sand to hand my clothes off to someone associated with the Tour show because even if my own things are of no consequence, I don't want to ruin the tunic top I was sent for this. I turn back around and dash out to meet Silk, purposely splashing her in my hurry.

         We play around in the waves and she tells me a little bit of this and that with my assurance that no one else can hear- "If you don't speak up, I can barely hear you myself!" I admit.    

         She mentions how kind Pal has been, how tiring the Victory Tour is, and recognizes Faline as, "One of your friends in that boat, huh?"

         Her teeth chatter when leave the water, but Mayor Current is there now, waiting, with a towel. One of the members of the District 8 style team is clearly dismayed by the effect of the salty water on Silk's hair, but aside from the fact that it's wet now, I can't see the difference.

         She gets dried off and redressed and coiffed in a back room of the Justice Building while Pal paces around. Someone friendly but still relatively powerful, probably Peacekeeper Benett, lets Faline in to give me a hand, which isn't really necessary, but I appreciate anyway. "Oh, hello!" she greets Pal.

         She turns out to be a good distraction for him, introducing herself and asking a handful of silly questions. Of course, when Silk pops out, ready to move on, Tosca rolls her eyes and has Faline kicked out to join the rest of the crowd assembling to listen to the speech in the square, but not before Faline's managed a swift speech of, "Hi! I'm Faline! Great to meet you!" in a single breath.

         Silk's eyes squeeze shut tight as she laughs over Faline's brave behavior. "I don't know, Mags, I think she might've done okay even if you didn't volunteer for her."

         "No sponsors," Pal says under his breath. Obviously, while the sponsorships are a decent portion of what brought Silk through her Games, they're also a cause of much of Pal's current pain.

         "I don't know if she's coming out of her shell or if she's always been less reserved than I thought she was," I admit.

         There's no doubt that Pal has complete belief in his assessment of matters from the way he says it: "You made her brave."

         "Come, come, Silk," the escort hurries her ahead to ascend the stage.

         Pal and I come out after her and stand back and to the side, aiming to appear calm and undistracting.

         Despite being such a latecomer to the square, Faline has somehow finagled herself into a spot right in the front. Then I look to her left and see Papa and I'm not so surprised because it would be just like him to hold onto some space for her. No one else I know well is toward the front, but I can see Maria from the club toward the middle perched on Rodrigo's shoulders.

         Mayor Current introduces Silk with a heavy sigh and says a few canned words, the same as he's said every time he's had to do this, even if they're harder to say this time than any of the others.

         "I'm sorry about your daughter," Silk turns and momentarily addresses Mayor Current directly, "And I'm sorry about Salvador too. I'm glad none of us had to fight one another. Shaya didn't talk very much at training, but just looking at her I could tell she was very elegant and thoughtful. Salvador, on the other hand, was kind of like Mags. He was talkative and funny. I understand completely that you must be missing them a lot."

         She does a good job. It's less personal here than it was in 5 and I think that has a positive effect on her performance.

         After all the speaking is done, there's a performance by a five-piece band from Down-District- a violin, a trumpet, and three types of guitars. Chayito Campana, the leader of the band, sings an old song that he's altered the words of to excise some Down-District slang which might confuse an outsider and to make it about Silk, which makes her blush considerably. I'm sure, Papa, who loves this kind of thing, is thrilled to have such a primo spot in which to be listening to it.

         When we move on to a big, fun fish fry dinner, both Papa and Faline are among the guests allowed to sit at one of the big tables included within the official festivities, but they're far away from the girl of the hour. Mayor Current sighs and sighs looking at Silk, but he's nothing but kind and polite to any of our visitors.

         "There should be dancing," Chayito, who has received a seat quite close to the guests of honor, "We've got the right kind of band for it." He taps a tune out on his plate with the side of his fork. "You like dancing, right, Mags?"

         "It's not up to me, Mr. Campana," I insist.

         "If…if your band is a dance band," Silk listens to him, "You should. You should play so people can dance."

         "Ask permission!" Pal chides her, though he seems more bemused than upset.

         "Can we dance?" Silk leans over to interrupt a conversation between Tosca and their escort, "Can the band play for people to dance?"

         Tosca gives her okay faster than the escort and Chayito gets his men (and one woman, on the trumpet) going again. "Will you please teach me?" Silk asks, rising and holding her hand out to me.

         "Uh, I'll try. I'm not sure how good a teacher I am though."

         "Oh, you can," Silk asserts, "I haven't forgotten Salvador yet. That wasn't just on my notecard. You taught him what he knew."

         The music is infectious and the urge to dance spreads out through the main party and out into the assembled crowd. I dance with Silk the first two times around so that she gets the basic idea, then move on to dance with Pal (haphazardly- he can't get the rhythm), Faline (excitably), and Papa (my best match, so the easiest of all).

         Faline and Silk meet once more, swirling about the center of the square under all the pretty lanterns. I'm sure Faline would be happy to dance with her for the rest of the hour, but after a second dance, Pal cuts in to remind Silk that she will have to be up and ready to take part in events in District 3 tomorrow.

         "You were a wonderful host," she shakes hands one last time with Mayor Current.

         "And you are my new favorite cousin," Silk hugs me.

         "Oh," I turn to Pal, "You told her."

         "See you in the Capitol," he takes his turn to putting his arms around me.

         I see them off, wishing they could stay longer.

 

         My day begins late, worn out as I am from the previous day's festivities. At times like this I am glad that I have no job aside from my duties as victor. Papa stayed out last night and yet he got himself up and back out on his boat this morning. I get to sleep in and pick at party leftovers for breakfast.

 

         While I imagine Beto and Silk certainly spoke to each other during the stop in 3 at least as much as Beto and I did, the show doesn't contain any footage of them addressing one another at all. Beto seems exceptionally bored, even for him. He reads a book at the table during the banquet until 8's escort takes it from him (and, wow, I do not like the look on his face when she pulls that stunt- maybe she doesn't want any friends in District 3, but I wouldn't have done something like that anyway).

         If Salvador had won, I would probably be having an uncomfortable moment alongside there over the boy he killed.

         Beto does not seem any more inclined to be kind or conversational after the book is gone than he did before. Silk keeps looking away from him with the same uncomfortable smile forced onto her face whenever their eyes meet.

         Some experimental fireworks commissioned for the celebration go off badly. A decorative canopy catches fire and I think Beto sneaks off while it's being dealt with.

         Pal and Silk, not allowed to get up and help put it out, try to act like it's not a big deal, but there's fear in both of them as flames reflect on their faces.

         The flames are quickly quashed and, with that, the night in 3 seems to wind down with no further difficulty (but what can I tell, really, seeing as I'm not there).

         "I like her, but you made for better TV," Papa says.

         There no point in trying to contest that point with him, seeing as, of course my father would think such a thing. "I don't think she cares, Papa," is the tack I take instead.

         "Oh…maybe not," it occurs to him, "You were kind of the odd one out, weren't you, the way you were always gunning for a laugh."

        

         During the dinner in District 2, Hector and Silk get a lot of laughs though, I'm sure, even if that's not what they're specifically aiming for as they play a game of play a game of how many plates they can balance on their heads, inspired by the ugly white hat Silk's escort wears to the event. The outcome is too close to call. I think Silk is better at the actual balancing act, but her neck isn't strong enough to hold as much weight as Hector's is.

         There are a few brief seconds of spoken-over footage of Hector's mother presumably making a fuss over her.

         In her comments, Silk admits that she was terrified she would run into the pair from 2 while they were together. She calls them, "An amazing team!"

         "Yeah, they did Two proud in that sense," Gerik sighs.

        

         A copy of the photograph of me with Silk and Pal arrives in the mail. I carefully watch over replays of her Tour's stop in 4, focusing in on the scenes of dancing. Faline gets embarrassed when she sees me playing a clip of her with Silk over and over, but I'm able to take her mind off it by bringing down the dream catcher I made her.

         "I'll cherish it," she promises.

 

         In District 1, Silk co-hosts a segment of Sophie Varen's program, where, compared to her usual effortless self that we see as she stops noticing the cameras around her, Silk is awkward and nervous. The best part of this is cutaways to Jack and Pal sitting on the sidelines of the set and watching her try her best at it. Jack certainly knows that they plan on filming him and using the material for the Tour programming if they like it, but Pal is sweetly oblivious to being on camera at this moment.

         As far the district response to her there, I suppose it's about as Sophie suggested to me. 1 came really close in this last Games, and with a tribute who had a reasonably good chance of killing this little girl when it came down to just the two of them. When Silk tries to speak the bland remarks someone has written for her regarding her final opponent, I can actually see the sweat start to bead up on his forehead.

         In her mind, I'm sure she's seeing him.

         I have been idly folding clothes and packing for my short trip to the Capitol surrounding Silk's celebration there, but I find myself standing in front of the television and starting at it over my open valise, remembering as well. She got him by sling-shoting her knife in his neck. He fell into the wildfire she'd started. It wasn't pretty, but Silk knows something about us the rest of us don't.

         She knows how it smelled. She looks like she's going to be sick.

         But somehow, even if she ends up losing her lunch, it doesn't happen on camera.

         Either way, I'm impressed that she does seem to be managing to eat something not long after. "Please don't light my hair on fire," she laughs at Jack as he puts his arm around her.

         "Don't be scared," he smiles down at her, "I promise I'll save all my fireworks for Mags." His remark provokes some general giggles and chattering from the peanut gallery. Pal looks very embarrassed. I try to surreptitiously ascertain whether Papa took notice of this sort of double entendre, but can't quite make up my mind because he's looking in the direction of the television, but he has a local newspaper spread out in front of him and his expression is so very calm…

 

         Papa takes a very early walk with me to the train station. "Have a wonderful time," he kisses my cheek. "I love you."

         "I love you too, Papa." He turns back toward town in the interests of getting to his boat quickly enough that his usual schedule isn't upset by this diversion. I think he feels bad when he and his little crew don't bring in a big enough catch because he's not relying on that money the rest of them are anymore (of course, part of the draw of working for Papa for these men has always been the greater freedom than being on one of the big boats- there's a tradeoff there, that's life). When things seem light, I've given him the money to make up the difference to them, but I can't say he's entirely pleased with that answer either.

         It's a quiet ride into the Capitol. I'm so pleasantly lulled by the motion of the train, I actually fall back to sleep for a while and awake to find one of the train staff standing over me with a funny smile on her face. "I'm the 'chief comfort officer' here," the young woman quips (she's not Capitol- this means she must be from 6), "So give me a ring if you need anything, Miss Gaudet."

         "Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks." I rub my eyes.

         Nar meets me at the train station alongside Shy, who has apparently arrived only about fifteen minutes prior. She has a bulkier suitcase than I do and I get the impression she's trying to convince Nar it's his job to carry it for her because he hasn't hired a porter.     

         When she lays eyes on me, Shy puts whatever that was about aside. "Mags! Are you going to stay at the Games center while you're here? I am! Come play roommates with me on the fifth floor!" she urges.

         "I- I don't know-" I had made my plans expecting to stay at the Games center rather than take up space at Aulie's place (since out of my team, I'm the only one invited to the party it just wouldn't seem right), but I'm not sure I want to so suddenly decide to spend all of my time out of the spotlight with Shy.

         "She might have plans with Jack," Nar steps up and holds out his hand- offering to take my valise where he previously refused Shy's. My things aren't heavy, so I don't accept the offer.

         "Uh," I stammer. I tell the truth. "I'm keeping things open."

         "Well!" Shy insists, "I am as open as can be. So keep me on your radar if you're bored or something."

 

         I spend most of the remaining day alone, exploring the quiet spaces of the Games complex. There's a minimum of staff hanging around now, mainly Avoxes performing routine maintenance. I recognize some of them and smile, but I don't know how to communicate with them the way I've seen Nar or Pal do and I don't really have anything to say anyway, so I won't interrupt their work.

         Spring comes by with a rack of clothes, "Just this and that that Erinne's worked on," she explains.

         "I brought my big net full of stars," I show her. Other that that, I didn't pack fancy clothes, figuring I won't distress my style team by wanting to wear something over this time.

         "You're in love with this one," she laughs, "But I can't say I blame you! It's dredged up all the treasures of the sea for you or something- lots of good memories. You got a good showing at your celebration in it. …And you fell in love, right?"

         "I don't know about _love_ ," I'm not going to overplay it, "But that was my first kiss."

         Spring thinks this over, nodding. "I like the way you do things unintentionally big."

         We come up with an outfit for the party that pairs my veil of stars, tied around my waist this time, with a dress sporting a violet gradient. Spring shows me a fancy necklace Erinne bought her before she goes. "All the most noteworthy couples are getting engaged these days," she jokes about it, but I'm happy for her too.

         I meet up with Shy in the Games Center lobby. Nar shows up to escort both of us to the party. I think about all the things regarding Jack and me that have been run by him at some point or other and sort of skirt around bringing the topic up. "I have no complaints," is all Nar has to say about the two of us. Shy muses about if and when I might be able to tell her embarrassing things about Jack ("For me to use against him!" she declares with the blissful smile of someone caught up in wild imaginings).

 

         No one pays any special attention as we arrive, though our pictures are certainly snapped on the stairs. Inside, Shy peels away from my side to give her immediate good regards to Silk. I decide not to rush it. At some point I lose track of Nar, with his mysterious smile and turquoise suit, and just wander around through the faintly curious crowds, watching people and listening to the music and nibbling on things.

         I'm not involved in any particularly deep conversations, but many people manage to catch me long enough to make at least some token statement or acknowledgment of my presence. I'm just a regular part of the event scenery now. There's my future, as long as there are Games. For a shorter time than Beto projected, I hope. …how many dead tributes, I wonder, until the districts have matched the Capitol's number of children dead in the war… Maybe that will make for enough. Maybe some special anniversary.

         "Your shark is hanging from the ceiling of my dining room," Mr. Bronze tells me.

         "I hope District Four has good luck in the Games to come," Mr. Zimmer says, though I don't know how much this is a specific bit of good feeling intended for me to savor or what he's saying to all the other victors.

         Tosca is there, but I don't see her brother. Nar's acquaintance with the indigo freckles keeps on talking and talking to Sunny, who looks like she'd rather be moving on but can't escape from him. I wonder if he works for Victor Affairs too. Maybe he's her district liaison. That would a reasonable explanation for why she can't just talk her way out of it.

         I don't see any sign of Teejay, but it's possible he's passed out somewhere? I won't forget so soon that he was sitting on the floor during the first celebration for Silk.

         A familiar-looking woman remarks on the way I keep peering toward the floor. "It's not a full house victors-wise," she informs me.

         "Oh. Oh." I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. "You're Eight's escort, right?"

         "That I am," she agrees.

         "Did Pal invite me then?"

         "I'm certain he would have on the strength of how he bothers mentioning you, but it was Victor Affairs that managed the invitations."

         "Oh, I see. Thank you." And that means invitations will run toward the calm, the photogenic, the predictable. Not Luna, not Emmy, not Teejay. Probably not Beto, and he'd appreciate that it stayed that way.

         I'm asked a few times to dance, but I'm not in the mood (prompting some jokes both along the lines that I need to have a drink or two first and that I'm 'saving myself for' Jack). Jack must inevitably be here. It's the rare Games function where he doesn't show his face.

         Interestingly, Raisin is present at the celebration, the single district citizen who didn't kill to get here, wearing a red dress with a pattern of white cranes flying across the skirt. She keeps one hand on Kayta's arm and fills the other with whatever passing snack catches her eye. Her eyes are wide at every sight and she keeps looking around and around the way I think I did my first time in this sort of situation.

         "Congratulations on your engagement," I approach the pair.

         "That's appreciated, Fishsticks," Kayta dips his head.

         "You're invited to the wedding, of course," Raisin adds to her own thanks. "I really want it to be in Seven."

         "I'll get her what she wants on that one," Kayta smiles fondly.

         "I'll be looking forward to-"

         My words are cut short as the president makes his initial appearance. He says a few words that are generally in favor of the sponsorship program regarding tributes, laced with the slightest tinge of joking about his "disappointment" that due to his position he was unable to sponsor "Miss Sachet." Silk stands next to him, looking as thin as a fishing pole propped beside a kayak. She's wearing a red, sleeveless dress and there's a red rose dotted with rubies pinned into her hair. Pal stands on her other side, looking dull and fidgety in comparison, with a matching rose in his lapel.

         Our newest victor makes some more or less standard remarks regarding her victory, how thankful she is for everything she's received since then (with a special acknowledgment made of Pal), and how she hopes to continue to "do a tolerable job of things." Nearby me, Raisin Beech (soon to be Hiro) applauds particularly hard.

         There's a big cake brought out for Silk. The president offers her a knife to cut it that really doesn't seem of the right size or variety for the job. She's giving it a very strange look and then it occurs to me that this is the knife from her Games. The weapon that secured her survival.

         But for all the awkwardness of this, Silk presses on and attempts to cut the cake. The blade penetrates the white frosted surface and a burst of glittering confetti bursts forth.

         Silk lets out a squeal of surprise and trips backward, bumping into the president- I move I would surely fear to make myself even by accident, but he doesn't seem unduly upset as he settles her back onto her feet. …perhaps his hand even lingers on her bare shoulder a bit long…

        

         I don't receive much of chance to chat with either Silk or Pal. Silk's company is a commodity too highly sought after and Pal is as nearly unceasing as ever in his vigil. "I'm beat," he admits to me, "I have no idea how much sleep it's going to take for me to make up for this," but he still manages a smile.

         "Did you try the confetti cake?" Silk wonders, "The part that's not just confetti is actually very good."

         "I am actually seeing to it that she tries it at this very moment," Jack speaks up from behind me, carrying one saucer-sized red plate in each hand, topped by a delicate slice of cake that appears more fluffy frosting than any substance.

         The last I hear from Silk that night is her pleased little laugh at Jack's comically well timed appearance. "She likes me!" Jack grins, like this is some kind of achievement, "Two in a row. Seems like I'm finally getting this victor camaraderie thing down."

         Shy butts in from who knows where to ask for a bite of my cake. "Don't get your hopes up, mister," she teases Jack and when my small slice of cake is finished up (faster than I expected between the two of us), she asks me so hopefully for a dance that I can't help but give in.

         I see Kayta trying to lead Raisin around on the floor, but she keeps stepping on his feet.

         Jack stays off the floor, just watching, chatting a bit with the people nearby until he disappears from sight.

         The president dances with Silk while some man I don't know intrudes further into Pal's personal space than he's comfortable with. I muster up the courage to insert myself into this equation and the man backs off. Pal's face is flushed and he pulls out a handkerchief to wipe his face. "Would you prefer my company?" I ask him.

         "I don't want to cause you any trouble," he answers, "But if you stayed late, I'd appreciate it."

         "I'll stay as late as you do. I promise."

         We watch as Silk's attention is pulled about here and there. I see Pal's hand trembling and think of Papa. I grasp it and hold it silently, hidden between the folds of our clothes.

         I stay later than I have lasted before at any of these functions, even the ones held in my name. By that late hour, Silk is exhausted and Pal and 8's escort are half carrying her between them (if Pal picked her up himself, well, I think he could do it, but he wouldn't get too far). I accept a ride from them back to the Games Center.

         Hector is still there, yawning over a glass of purple liquor while a middle-aged woman goes on and on to him about something. As far as I know, all the other victors have already departed- then I see Jack through a window as I move further and further away. He looks out over the head of a woman I recognize as the president's daughter. And he sees me and raises a hand in a small gesture of goodbye.

         I put up my own hand in return.

         "One more party and we can relax again," Pal whispers in the back of the car, leaning over Silk as she dozes.

         I sleep hard that night and if I dream, I don't remember any of it.

 

         I'm awoken around nine o'clock by a friendly call from Aulie who suggests we get together at a nearby cafe for lunch. I assume I will go home today, but while Aulie and I are eating near the Games complex, Jack shows up and waves me over. "Uh, give me a minute," I excuse myself from the table.

         "Would you like to go out tonight?" Jack asks.

         "Go where?" I smile. I can't predict what he wants to do. I still don't go out much in the Capitol without some specific purpose. It's always business. If it's for fun, someone else is taking me. I only know a few places here that one could want to visit just for fun (there are ideas of fun here, I am guessing, that stretch far beyond my imaginations).

         "See a movie?" he suggests.

         I've never seen a movie in the Capitol. I've seen them projected up on the inside of the gym walls at school- sometimes for school and sometimes (a few times less) for fun.

         "I get tired of staying in," Jack shrugs, "Even if it means that people are looking at me or pestering me or I end up getting talked about on the tabloid news, I just get to that point where I'd like to go out."

         I must be taking longer to think about these things than I realized. I don't need the extra encouragement. I'm curious right from his mentioning it what the movies might be like- how grand the theater will be, how loud the sounds, how over the top the effects- the Capitol's love of a spectacle will undoubtedly be write large there. "Oh," I speak up, trying to save him more of whatever unease I may have provoked in him, "I'd like to go." With him more than anyone. "It sounds great."

         Jack brightens. I suppose I was right in thinking my quiet was getting to him. He didn't see that I was only very far away. "Are you going to be here around the Games center? Or back at Aulus'? I'll come around to pick you up."

         "With Aulie, I suppose. I'll let you know if there's any change in plans."

         "…someone can't get enough of your wonderful company, hmm?" Aulie posits when I double back to him.

         "Maybe it's mutual." I watch Jack go. There's this funny bit of spring in his step.

 

         When he shows up and knocks on Aulie's door for me that night, joking around with Aulie like he has to ask my older brother's permission to come courting, I show up in my ordinary clothes. Jack isn't exactly dressed up himself, so it's not like there's a contrast in our levels of attire, but he's carefully thoughtful off the bat as we climb into the car that's brought him.

         "Will you be okay walking in the city at night like that? It'd be a bit big, but I could loan you a coat."

         "I don't know," I admit, "Does it get very cold here at this time of year?"

         "You get cold easily, don't you?" Jack guesses or tries to remember. It seems like something I might have said. "District Four is one of the warmest districts, isn't it? Four and Eleven?"

         "It is warm there," I confirm, "I do get cold easily."

         "Well," Jack always seems happy to be able to improve a situation for someone else, "I can take care of that." He asks the driver to take us to his building and doesn't make the man wait for us once we arrive. "Just give me a second!" he moves out of the elevator ahead of me. He darts off- he's aged since his first blush of fame, but he's young yet and hasn't slowed- and I watch the tail of his untucked shirt fluttering behind him. I'm getting used enough to visiting his apartment that I don't try to pack in as many furtive glances around the room as possible while he's gone. I feel comfortable here, however the rest of the Capitol might or might not sit right with me. Jack has treated me, maybe not the best, but the most casually of any of them. In his apartment, in the restaurants, on the set of a television show- if I go there with Jack, I belong there.

         It's funny; I would never have expected it. But I suppose the Hunger Games have taught me better than anything else- person to person, district to district, districts and Capitol- no one lives or dies alone. We're a big complicated mess, all tied up together.

         Jack comes back in pulling on his brown leather jacket, with another coat, a gray one, with a lighter colored, fleecy-looking lining, over his arm. "Okay," he holds up the gray coat for a moment so that I know what he's about to do before he tosses it to me. I catch it, albeit gracelessly. "I think we're good."

         "Do we get to walk far?" It seems like no one walks as far in the Capitol as they do at home. I'm used to walking more than riding in cars. I prefer it (there are boats you can ride in the Capitol, but none that really take you anywhere- the point is just the pleasure of boating, which I can hardly begrudge them).

         "It's a couple blocks," Jack answers, a measure of distance that I still don't completely understand. "…the right distance for you to be able to enjoy yourself, I think. And not get too cold either."

         I put on the coat, which is warm and soft, just like looked, as well as considerably overlong for someone my size and height. I roll up the sleeves far enough that about half of my hands are visible, which strikes me as a workable amount of space so that I can stay a comfortable temperature without being unnecessarily hampered movement-wise. "Oh, okay."

         Jack gives me a thumbs-up when I seem ready and I flash one back at him.

         His keys jingle in his pocket as he heads out through the door and I follow him.

         It's so quiet as we exit out into the hall and down the stairs that I wonder, not for the first time, if anyone else even lives in this building or if Jack has bought out the entire tower just to get some peace. On one hand, it strikes me as ridiculous. On the other, it would make for a good buffer. Anyone who showed up without Jack's direct invitation would have no good excuse for being there.

         There's no discussion about the elevator. This time we take the stairs. Jack takes them faster- mainly it's his size- and keeps about two steps ahead of me. I watch little bits of his hair blow back as he goes. It's picturesque.

         We don't pass anyone until we make it out onto the street and the first few people we see are too caught up in their own revels to notice us (either that or they're so used to seeing Jack that it doesn't leave any impression anymore). Jack adjusts his pace so that he's walking roughly side by side with me. He was right about it being cold. My breath escapes in puffs to hang, misty, in the air.

         "The theater is called 'The Odeon,'" Jack explains to me as we go, "Because it's a historic name for a place where people perform."

         "That so?" I have no basis to say whether there's any truth in this, but there's absolutely no reason for Jack to lie about it. If the information is wrong, it's only because someone else misinformed him in the first place. "…How do you suppose the people in the Capitol decide what old things it is they like when there are so many they just forget about or don't bother with at all?"

         He's quite candid. "I haven't the slightest idea." He shrugs as he usually does.

         Some footage of a past Hunger Games is playing live on a huge screen across the street. A girl in Two's colors is smashing nuts open with the side of a machete. I get that "better those than someone's head" feeling, even though soon enough that's what it's probably going to be.

         "Don't look," Jack touches my shoulder and I turn my face back toward him.

         "I just noticed it out of the corner of my eye…" I'm not sure if I'm apologizing. Do I need to apologize?

         "You can't, I know, but- forget about the Games." He's stopped and I've stopped too. We stand in the middle of the sidewalk just looking at one another. His green eyes look turquoise from the bluish light of the nearest eccentric streetlamp (the one before it was white and the one after it looks purple). It's like his face is glowing. He could be on a poster right now, he looks so perfect. …Or maybe it's not the perfection that the Capitol desires, but I think-

         "Mags, remind me, what's the name of the place your family came from?"

         "N'orleans," I reply, furrowing my brow. I'm not sure what this is about. "That's where my father's family came from. My mother's family was from Baja." Both of them are parts of North America that were swallowed by the rising sea. I've never seen Baja, but sometimes we sail over N'orleans. On a clear day, you can see the empty shells of buildings. It's an underwater graveyard.

         "And nobody in the Capitol ever talks about N'orleans or Baja. …Unless they're historians, maybe."

         "Jack, do you know anything like that about your family?" I try to discern where he's going with this.

         "I have no idea," he grins suddenly, "But wherever they came from and whatever they spoke like or looked like, I bet they liked movies and stories and songs-" his motion directs me back into moving, "And they would've got along with your relatives and people like you."

         "You assume they were like you."

         "And vice versa about yours," he reaches out and gives my shoulder a nudge.

         We start laughing and that's what finally gets people looking at us as we move on past the blue light, through the purple one, and on into a sphere of gold. That's how people know us best, I guess. Whatever they think of us separately, when we're together, we laugh.

         The crowd increases as we draw nearer to the shops and the theater and we begin to stand out more for the sheer plainness of our appearances. Our muted clothes in gray and white and black and brown and blue; our subdued hairstyles. "That's Jack Umber," I hear someone say off to my right, although they don't attempt to approach him.

         A few yards further, as Jack directs me to look up and take in the fantastically over the top facade of The Odeon, someone says his name with the intent of getting him to look over and prove that he is indeed Jack Umber. It works. He glances to the left and waves at the people. The woman who called him giggles, sounding quite pleased by his response. "The girl is a victor too," the woman's friend with the carrot-colored hair says. I don't look anything like Shy, and not much like Luna or Sunny or Silk, so he must be deciding if I'm me or if I'm Emmy Pollack.

         "Mags," he tries correctly.

         "Hi," I waggle my fingers back at him and he gives his friend an "I told you so" sort of grin.

         "'What're you doing tonight?'" Jack affects a funny tone of voice like someone else, meant to be someone Capitol (it's the accent), putting the question to him, "'Oh, just going out, walking around, enjoying being famous,'" he replies as a particularly flippant, humorous version of himself.

         "Which movie are we going to see?"

         "I don't know. I didn't decide in advance." We both gaze up at the marquee. The letters of the titles themselves are glittering. I scrutinize them carefully, but in the end they're only strings of words.

         I start laughing. No wonder people expect it of me- I laugh often. Jack looks down at me. "What's so funny?"

         "I haven't the slightest idea how to pick! I don't know anything about a single one of these movies!"

         The smile on his face tenses wider. "Well, we could go take a look at the holo-posters, but I don't think that's what you're trying to tell me."

         "Mmm-mm, no," I shake my head. "You pick."

         "Hmmmmm," he drags the syllable out comically, rubbing his chin as he scans his eyes over the listings one more time. "Okay," he snaps his fingers, "I've got it."

         He's so "on." I wouldn't mind if he were more subdued, but I can't complain either. I don't think this is an act. It's just what he's like. He may do and say these kinds of things to amuse people when he's on TV, but he would do and say them anyway to tease his friends and family and cheer himself up even if he weren't famous- even if he had never won the First Hunger Games.

         It's so easy to like Jack.

         He ushers me onward into the ticket line to stand behind a woman with brilliant blue butterflies (are they fake? they're moving. I think they're real) tied to her yellow-blond hair. The line moves slowly, but with a steady purpose. I stick my cold hands into my pockets to try and warm them. Jack blows the air out through his lips like smoke and it dances off casually into the sky.

         When it's our turn at the ticket counter, Jack does all the talking, picking out the movie he's chosen and paying with a swipe of some kind of bankcard, which flashes bluish-green when it goes through.

         "Enjoy yourselves," the girl behind the glass says. I wonder if she's says so because she knows who we are, or if it's just part of her job to say it to everyone who buys a ticket.

         "I hope so," Jack responds.

         He hands me my own ticket to hold onto. It's about the same size and shape as his bankcard, but it's made of some special kind of paper where the black parts change color as the light runs over its initially two-toned surface. There's a young man at the doors who scans our tickets when we enter and gives us such a pleasant smile that I strain to give him an equally cheerful one in reply.

         "Are you going to tell me what the movie's about?" I ask Jack, "Or am I supposed to be surprised?"

         "Hmm," he thinks on it, "I think I should let you be surprised."

         "I hope that means it's going to be a good surprise, Jack," I tell him in the sternest tone I can manage at the moment, which would hardly be considered threatening.

         "I made my best attempt when I chose," he offers. He looks to the concession counters. It's funny to see something like this that I only know from movies themselves. The only thing I've ever eaten while watching a movie before were meals that came from home. Papa would pack a dinner for us to take to the gymnasium and share while we watched. I can remember one of my teachers brought cookies once. They were lemon-flavored. "I think some popcorn would be good if you'd like to share something," Jack suggests.

         It sounds wonderful. I can't imagine saying no. "Like in Nine," I remember. "It had caramel on it there."

         "You're never one to forget a good meal," Jack states a gentle truth that has long since become such a deeply entrenched joke in my victor mythology that it's hard to think I'll ever shake it. But, fine, what do I care? It's the truth. "…It won't quite be a meal, but I hope that this is just as memorable."

         "Everything I do with you is memorable, Jack," I say. And then I wonder if I shouldn't have said it.

         Jack smiles. He smiles bright and bold and hard.

         Maybe it was the right thing to say. Maybe I've just made his day (his week, his month- this is Games season after all). Jack goes up to the concessions counter and banters a bit with the salespeople about the sizes or the prices or something- I don't note the details; I'm too busy looking at him and mulling things over. When Jack is really happy, he's just so…

         He laughs. The popcorn he's purchased comes in a red and white bag. It's tall and practically overflowing. "Take a little!" he encourages me, fumbling to catch a few stray bits before they fall to the floor, all the while making sure not to topple over the rest of the bag.

         "It's hot!" I squeak, though with that strong scent of butter wafting off of it, should I have expected anything different?

         "Mind yourself," he says.

         I hesitate before mindlessly wiping my sticky fingers on Jack's coat- how rude that would be- and swipe them against the side of my pants instead. Not particularly mannerly, but I don't think anyone notices. He didn't give me a napkin.

         We head off the main lobby of the theater down a gradually darkening hall. It gives my eyes time to adjust before we're in the actual room we'll watch the movie in. "Can you see okay if we sit in the back?" Jack asks, "No one will notice us up there."

         I don't think that many people will notice us in this minimal lighting, but Jack would know better than I in this circumstance. And my eyes are just fine. I'm not picky. I allow it.

         He leads the way up to seats in the very back row and lets me go ahead of him. There's no one else in the row and I hope it stays that way as I scuttle along to as close to dead center as I can determine from a rough estimate. Jack follows along behind me. Scooting around in the dark, I begin to feel a tingling of pleasant anticipation. It seems like a long time since I've seen a movie. I've never done this with one of my victor friends. It's strangely exciting.

         People chatter quietly to their companions and flick their fingers across the softly glowing screens of the various personal communication devices in favor in the Capitol these days. Some still photo ads for the newest Leinbeck-Lennox fashion line move across the screen.

Popcorn pops and clicks between Jack's (real, fake) teeth.

         I grin into the protective darkness. I feel as happy as Jack looked when I talked about things being memorable with him.

         He reminds me that the popcorn is for both of us (although I think he probably could and would eat all of it himself if I let him). Our fingers brush over the top of the wavy-edged paper.

         The lighting changes and the amount of tiny self-brought screens I can see drops drastically as the pre-movie showings begin. The ads they show now are sharp and flashy, pitched loud and with effects that practically jump out of the screen. I don't know how they make it look like that.

         In a brief moment of brightness, I notice Jack looking at me as I clench my fingers over the ends of the armrests. Special showings of the recap cuts of the Games. Haakon's blood looks like it's draining out of the projection and into the people below. I can see every freckle on Emmy's face. An arrow strikes forth and flies toward us, but that's not as disconcerting as seeing Salvador sleeping as my impromptu wake-up device for him floats toward the ground.

         …I'm not sure I can stay to watch the movie after that. I feel boxed in by the blackness. I force myself to take calm breaths. The set of pre-show bits moves on to a neutral (which really means typical) propaganda piece. I try to pay more attention to it than I have ever paid attention to one of these clips before. A Mockingjay flits across one corner of the sky as a reporter speaks in front of some bombed out portion of Thirteen.

         "Mags," Jack touches my arm.

         I tense up.

         "Look at me," he says. When his voice turns commanding like this, I'm reminded that we're not the same age. That we share a few important things in common, but Jack is eleven years older and however much stronger and more commanding then me.

         I listen to him.

         "Deep breath." He doesn't look mean or angry, despite the iron in his voice. "You're safe. You're here with me. You're going to be okay."

         "Okay," I repeat. Maybe this is why he wanted to sit apart from the other patrons. I would guess that the theater is about half full. A couple ended up in the back row with us, but they're pushed over all the way into the farthest corner. Back home it would be a couple of more forward kids doing that and holding hands and when it went past holding hands someone's mom or a teacher would yell at them, adding unintentional humor to our viewing.

         I do feel better. I feel more normal.

         Jack looks like he wants to say something more, but the lingering thought never leaves his lips. Maybe he's just deciding whether or not he needs to repeat any of his reassurances or add onto them.

         "I'm okay," I tell him.

         He nods. He believes me. The movie begins. A green-haired girl walks through a landscape filled with snow- piled on the ground, fluttering through the air, settled on top of gray and black machinery. She's magic; she's a soldier. She meets a man who wants to help her. She says she doesn't understand what love is.

         The effects are beautiful. The actors are beautiful. Somewhere along the way I forget where I am. I forget to eat more of the popcorn. There isn't anything else existing in my world for the majority of two hours. I'm riveted.

         The girl falls in love. Romantic love has never looked like such a wonderful thing.

         I am aquiver through the ending credits and the enchanting instrumental piece that accompanies them. My eyes remain onscreen long past the last image, wondering or yearning for more. Are there more movies like this? I have never been so moved by some fiction on a screen.

         "I know it's a little cliché," Jack says, although I don't think so at all (in the Capitol is this common to the point of cliché?), "But I hope you liked it. It's based on a pretty old story."

         "What did you think?" I'm not afraid to tell him my honest feelings, but I have to know.

         "Overall… I'd say I loved it."

         Part of me considers that he's just telling me what I want to hear when he answers because I'm not sure I would've guessed this as his opinion on my own, but I want to believe that the Jack I know is not just the laughing mask put on for the public, but the true thing, the most sincere Jack he can bear to give. It's all I want (maybe it's too much). It's for us to be real friends.

         "So did I," I admit at last. The theater has cleared out aside from us.

         "I thought so," he says. He means it with only kindness. "Shall we head out?"

         There's nothing else to be done here, even if I want time to slow so that I can mull over the movie and my feelings toward it for a long, long time. "Okay," I agree." I arise, shaky on my feet- from emotion? -from this stretch of motionless sitting? But I don't need help from anyone. I don't stumble and Jack doesn't have to catch me.

         He throws away the empty popcorn bag. We wander out of the theater, where I've forgotten how dark the sky is, how bright the lights are, and how cold the air is. I pull Jack's coat closer, wrapping my arms around myself.

         "You didn't end up eating very much popcorn," he notes.

         "I was too caught up in the movie."

         "If that means that you're still hungry enough to eat something, I know a good place we could have some ice cream," Jack suggests, "It could just be something small."

         What an appetite he has, as the one who did most of the eating. "Okay," I allow, "A small one." I'm not especially hungry, just as I wasn't before, but maybe if we walk I can work up more of an appetite on the way. I haven't tired yet of the amazing concoctions the kitchens of the Capitol have to offer. I wonder if I ever will. Some people like clothes and some like jewelry and I suppose everyone has some kind of lust that the Capitol can cater too. And I like food. I am no better than anyone else. …Neither is Jack, I guess. Everyone's human. No one is perfect.

         "How far is? Will we walk?"

         "You're not too cold?" he seems a bit worried about me. "…You look kind of cold."

         "No, I'll get warm again when we get moving faster." I can tell he'll go along with this, even if he remains a bit skeptical. He thinks I'm going to push myself. He just wants to be nice. "You know I like to walk."

         "Yeah," Jack agrees.

         He pulls ahead about a step and a half. He has to go a bit before me because I don't know where we're going (a second after I think this, it occurs to me how doubly true this is- I don't know where I'm going at all, the future is a fog).

         "Do you think it will snow soon?" I still don't like the cold. I can't say I like the snow. I'm not used to it. Even if the movie we just saw has left me with more of a romanticized impression of it, I can't say that I want to be walking around in it.

         "It's not cold enough, so no," Jack shakes his head. He knows better than I do.

         "Does it snow in One?"

         "Sometimes."

         He seems vague, abstracted. Then again, maybe he's just thinking of the best way to get to where we want to go. He might not usually go on foot. It's even further from his apartment than the theater. "…Do you like the snow?"

         "Not especially," Jack admits without looking back at me, "It reminds me of when my mother died."

         I want to know more, but at the same time, I don't want to be rude. Lots of our generation was stripped bereft of family by the war- parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older brothers and sisters and cousins. The rebellion killed mostly adults. Now the Games cull the young. Jack was hardly the only tribute in the First Games not to have any family living to be interviewed. They didn't interview at the Final Eight then. They waited until there were four left. Only the boy from Ten, I think, had a mother. No one had a father. So I know that much. Jack's family has been dead for at least as long as we've had the Games.

         "My mother died during the war," I volunteer.

         Jack pauses and leans down a little so he can lower his voice and still be sure I'll hear over the sounds of idle chatter and cars whizzing off along the streets. "As a rebel?" he whispers.

         "Maybe not officially, but…" I intimate. I barely have any recollections of Mama, who died in another district so that her body never came home. My memories are mainly stories from Papa that I have imagined into life. But she was beautiful, I know. She braided my hair and made my clothes and the doll I have at home that I carried for so many years.

         "My father died a rebel," Jack says, "Right away. Early on. So I could live, my mother starved."

         I knew when I asked that I might hear something like this. I gape anyway. "S-so," I stammer, "Are you going to get a big ice cream?"

         "Yeah," he agrees and begins to move again, "A sundae. Whipped cream, chocolate, lots of sprinkles."

         "You deserve it, Jack."

         His hand swings back and I think about grabbing it, squeezing it tight, letting my fingers slip between his and allowing myself to be pulled along to our destination (the small destination of now, the bigger destination of who knows where) by Jack's strong grip.

         In the instant I spend thinking about it, I miss my chance, though his hand will certainly swing back again. Another chance will come, but whether I would be wiser to take it or not is hard to say. I am bound to do whatever is the less wise option.

         "Down this way," Jack waves for me to turn a corner. "And there it is," he points out a tiny shop strung with white and silver lights. The only person inside is a young woman in a uniform- the sole employee behind the counter. Side by side, Jack and I dart across the quiet street. A silver bell on the door jingles as Jack lets me in. Soft music is playing inside. The girl behind the counter smiles. Her tied back hair is reddish brown, a similar shade to Jack's. I imagine he knew our odds were good of being alone here.

         I let Jack lead again to the counter. I look at his hands as he sets them on top of the glass covering the rainbow-like array of ice cream flavors available. He has steady hands. He has broad shoulders. You can eat snow, can't you? Even though it's nothing but frozen water. In my cruel imagination, he ate snow once and pretended it was ice cream. Now he never goes hungry. How can he bear it?

         I am lost in thought and he's finished his detailed order. "And for you?" the girl is asking while at the same time, "Mags?" he prompts me.

         "I…just want an ice cream cone," I fumble about, scanning all the types. If I'm having it here in the Capitol with Jack, doesn't that mean I should try something more creative than the same old vanilla we always have at home? It's hard to imagine that any kind of ice cream could be that bad, but chili pepper? Passion fruit? I don't even know what that tastes like. Whatever I buy (I let Jack buy me?), I have to eat, so it won't do to be too adventurous. "A small one," I warn the shopgirl before she picks a medium-sized cone off a stack.

         Jack's hand catches my eye again as I look away from the clerk's indulgent gaze. He's pointing through the glass at a white-colored kind. They all have little handmade labels distinguishing their flavor: "white peach." I guess this is Jack's recommendation.

         "Of the white peach kind," I finish my request.

         "I've got it," Jack convinces me to hold off producing a method of payment. "The whole night is my treat."

         The ice cream shop girl gives us a funny look that I can't decipher. Does she know who we are? Does she know something about Jack that gives this look its meaning?

         "Thank you," I fret, plucking at the bottom hem of my shirt.

         He pays and we go with our ice cream to a table beside the window. The shop girl goes into the back, possibly to give us some privacy. As is so often the case, I don't know, and can only wonder. My ice cream is simple. Sweet. It tastes good. I thank Jack for the suggestion and he only nods.

         The sundae he customized is decadent and ornate. There are three scoops of ice cream of different flavors, swirls of whipped cream, chocolate syrup, rainbow-colored sprinkles, and candied orange slices. He picks up the long-stemmed spoon and takes a small, studied bite. I've always known that Jack had to have more to him than the laughing and joking and smiling and being a good sport because of the Games, but even knowing that, he did seem the happiest victor of all. He's always so happy with me. Now I wonder if I'm completely wrong about all that. Maybe Jack Umber is the saddest man in the world.

         …And he's not talking. Has this moment been long or short? Time slips away from me. I can't decide.

         "The girl in the movie," I say. I may have been distracted, but my enchantment floats about and mixes in my mind with Jack's silent pain, "I liked her green hair."

         "It wouldn't look bad on you," he bursts out with an impressively large and chocolate-smudged grin. It isn't that funny. Has it occurred to him that he's let his guard down? Does he feel some need to overcompensate in return?

         "No," I shake my head, although a smile can't help but come creeping up to turn the corners of my lips, "Not for me. Hers- the character's- was natural."

         "Hmm." He eats a little faster.

         I lick my ice cream. I want him to tell me more about what he thought about the movie, although I'm not sure I want to ask him straight out. "Why did you pick that one?" would probably be safe, but I'm still hoping he drifts to it himself. "…You said that the story the movie was based on was really old," I bait my hook and cast it further afield. "I'd never heard it before. At least not in a way that I could tell it was the same story."

         "Oh, well, I read a story like it back in One." He swirls whipped cream and chocolate sauce and sprinkles around and around together with his spoon. "It might not be one of those nation-wide ones. An old local one."

         "Is that why you wanted to see it?"

         "Not exactly, since I didn't plan it out in advance… I just… I thought you would appreciate it."

         He was right. "I did. You know." I set my free hand on the table, my fingers poking out of the long sleeve of his coat, no longer as well rolled up as it was before. "I, uh," I laugh, "I kind of identified with some of it."

         "Me too," he copies my movement, placing his empty left hand on the tabletop, "…with the heroine, that is." He lets out a funny, choked kind of laugh.

         "…then I'm like the hero to-" To you. I can't say it.

         In the movie, the hero and the heroine are holding hands. "Oh, I love you," she says, "But you trouble me." She pushes away, letting go of his hand.

         Jack makes a funny face, stretching his cheeks into an excessively wide smile while raising his eyes to the ceiling. I slide my hand over the table until the tips of our fingers touch.

         Before I have time to renege on the gesture, he reaches out and takes my hand. The empty spoon is steady in his other hand. The half-eaten ice cream cone twitches in mine and no force of will steady it. Jack is a rock in a tempest and I have my father's nerves.

         My lips form the same words, but only Jack says them. Are the first few understood or not part of our equation? Neither of us say anything about love, "But you trouble me."

 

         I watch the televised presentation of Silk's big celebration in 8 on the way home. The commentators make gentle fun of Pal, who has fallen asleep in the back of one of the decorated tents. A gaggle of girls, who I would guess know Silk from her days living in the factory dormitory, hang about her and all the local people of note are seen talking to her or shaking her hand, but she still finds time to slip back off and check on Pal.

         I want to say that they're like brother and sister, but I can't help but think they're not quite like an ordinary brother and sister. They can appreciate one another in ways most siblings wouldn't. They lost everyone else; then found each other.

         There's a noise and Silk turns around to face whatever camera-person has followed her into the back. "Shh," she warns, not wanting them to wake Pal. The loose, cloak-like garment he's wearing is spread open over the back of the chair and Silk flips it back over against to cover Pal, tucking the corners in around him.

         She pulls today's scarf off her hair- orange and blue- and wraps it around Pal's neck. She looks at him so sweetly. It's the same way he looks at her, minus the worry.

 

         Snow drifts down on District 8 in little gusts and flurries.


	13. Part III, Chapter III

         I celebrate turning nineteen with Papa and my club and whatever friends and siblings they can drag to my house for the event. I know that in keeping the gathering self-centered it will be allowed now and, presumably, in the future. I order a box of shiny foil pinwheels from the Capitol (though it seems they may have initially been made in 1) and give them out to whoever wants one. Papa, his ship hands, and Mr. Armain fry up a bunch of shrimp. Faline makes lemonade with her mother and dyes it pink. There's a chocolate cake decorated with a rainbow of colored sprinkles from a place Down-District recommended by Peterzeno.

         I receive a semi-surprise visit from Nar and a couple of television people, who take some footage of my party- of the food, of the guests, of the music playing on a beat-up old record player that belongs to 'Lito's father. I don't have a piñata for my celebration, but Zeno tries very earnestly to explain what one is and how it's made and why people in the Capitol might like one. I think the cameras are happier to hang on Faline and Zeno than on me- and it's _my_ birthday. Of course, I don't mind if nothing bad will come of this attention, but I worry more and more about the way the Capitol's collective eye lands on people and the way that it looks.

         Russula Pert, the casual sort of reporter who will be the face of the segment (Nar just laughs when I suggest that he's going to appear on television) asks me easy questions about how I feel to be nineteen ("No different"), what I'd like for my birthday ("Just to have a fun day, really"), and if I have a message for my fans in the Capitol ("Thank you for all your support and please have a nice day too"). Then she breaks out the officially vetted fanmail and I sit on my porch and read aloud several sets of friendly good wishes and respond to them off the cuff while Faline sits beside me and laughs at my answers.

         A handful of packages from my fellow victors are easier to know how to accept. From Shy comes a homemade card- a piece of felt embroidered with flowers, from Kayta and Raisin a sort of sachet thing that smells like pines, from Hector and Gerik a bandanna in bright 2 colors, and from Silk and Pal a patchwork scarf. Russula mopes about how unfortunate it is that Silk's birthday is virtually always guaranteed to fall during the Games and, therefore, not be able to stand out will mine as its own celebration. "Silk will be sixteen this year," she reminds our audience.

         That makes it sound like the time has passed quickly. Silk will still be fifteen for many more months.

         Russula goes on to tell me about what a big fuss Jack made about wanting to be allowed to come along and join the party himself and how he's probably back in his apartment sulking, "right this very minute," about how they had to turn him down. "If it had been up to me," Russula pats my shoulder sympathetically, "I would certainly have brought the dear man along. …But I'm sure you understand how these things go, Mags."

         "Yes," I nod, "I know."

         When the cameras are off again and Estelle and Maria are busy feeding cake to a more flirtatious member of the camera crew, Nar approaches me about the matter of Jack. "He really should have known better than to ask," Nar sighs, "Meeting up in the Capitol is one thing, but we really can't allow district citizens- even victors- to cross district boundaries willy-nilly. And if exceptions are going to be made for the Beech-Hiro wedding- which I think they are- all the more reason we have to be conservative in other matters."

         "I wouldn't have advised him to do it," I sigh.

         "I assumed as much. …In any case, thank you for your general cooperation throughout the year and happy birthday." Nar shakes my hand.

         "Thank you."

 

         Jack gives me a call in the evening after everyone has gone home- after, I think, the footage of my party has aired. "Happy birthday. …I wish I could've been there."

         "You shouldn't have tried," I insist, tired, lying down on my bed as I talk. "There was no way they would've let you."

         "Hope springs eternal?" he suggests. I can picture him shrugging as he says it. "…and don't think that means I only meant for my presence to be my gift to you. I bought you a book. But I'd rather give it to you in person."

         "Well, there'll be the wedding or… I guess I'm not too busy to come see you just about anytime."

         "Anytime?" he switches tracks, "Tomorrow? …Are you too shy to stay overnight at my place? Because I bet you could be here by tomorrow night if that isn't a problem and I could even cook you breakfast."

         He doesn't mean something like. Like moving so fast. I don't think.

         My pause must seem to last a long time.

         "Or something else? It's up to you. I'll go along with whatever you decide."

         "…How about…is there a train I can take overnight? Not tonight, but tomorrow night. And I'll come and meet you early in the morning?"

         "I take it that breakfast was a good offer."

         I advise Jack not to press his luck, though my feelings aren't actually mixed at all. I have free time and it would be nice to see him again.

         Everything is worked out with a minimum of trouble. It's still awkward telling Papa what I'm going off to do, but he doesn't seem to mind. There should be a group 'get together' while I'm gone, but I ask Rodrigo to take care of it. He seems to enjoy being delegated this responsibility.

         I end up enjoying the overnight train ride into the Capitol. There are other people, Capitol citizens, I gather, traveling in another car on the same train, but according to the serving Avoxes' hand gestures, they got drunk and went to sleep early. I ask everyone if their work is finished and if it is, would they like to stay up a while with me, and, as a result, I end up watching a terrible movie about cowboys in District 10 with three Avoxes. They seem to enjoy the movie (for values of "enjoy" that include laughing at things that are obviously poorly made and kind of terrible). I'm not that hungry, but I offer to treat them, using my birthday as an excuse, and I have an entire box of tiny, pre-made cakes charged to my account since it seems like an easy thing to share and doesn't require anyone to get back into the kitchen car and actually cook anything.

         Some of the lower level train staff, the ones I assume are District 6 people, laugh at me in the morning when we arrive in the Capitol and I awake from an awkward sleep in a stuffed chair with chocolate frosting smudged on my face.

         "Good morning!" Jack greets me on the platform. He looks to have slept just fine.

         "Hi…is it okay for me to wash up at your place?" I ask, embarrassed, having not had the time to get myself together all that well before getting off the train.

         "Of course!" He doesn't bat an eye. "You can wash your face or take a shower or whatever you need."

         "Washing my face will be good enough, I'm sure." I look down as I say it because I'm sure I'm going to be embarrassed if I make eye contact.

         This early there barely seems to be anyone out and about. Back home, the majority of the fishing boats will be out at work already. Even Papa is probably shoving off to sea. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Capitol wouldn't be a city of early risers.

         Back in Jack's (too spacious to be a real normal apartment) apartment, he takes my bag and directs me vaguely to the bathroom. I walk slowly, indulging my curiosity to peer down at the hall. There are three doors. Two are open; one is closed. One open door leads to the bathroom. The other allows me a peek into a small room set up with some bookshelves, a desk, and a sort of day bed. I assume this is some kind of office or guest room. Jack's bedroom is probably the one with the closed door.

         The bathroom reminds me of Aulie's home, being similarly appointed with fancy faucets and a vase of little purple flowers on a shelf. I wash my face in the sink with some sweet-smelling soap and feel funny drying my face on one of his embroidery-edged towels. I notice little details of the room that have escaped me on past visits, perhaps turning Jack's invitation to stay over in some corner of mind. Considering what it's like to live here as opposed to just visiting.

         Then it occurs to me I'm taking a very long time, so I hurry out to rejoin my host- now waiting casually for me in his living room. "You still sort of smell like chocolate," Jack chuckles when I come close, "Chocolate and soap!"

         "You have a tub," I say stupidly. I don't know what possesses me to just blurt out these inevitably awkward things.

         "Yes," Jack responds, all calm and matter of fact. He cocks his head. He's wondering why I mentioned it.

         "I, I just don't see many tubs here in the Capitol. Well. Not that I've been many places in the Capitol where I could see them, but." I am digging myself deeper and deeper in this hole of awkward aren't I? "Well, there aren't any at the Training Center."

         "And you prefer to take baths," Jack assumes. If he wants to laugh at me, he's managing to hold it back for now at least.

         "Yes," I answer, roughly replicating his seconds-earlier neutrality.

         I hold my nervous grin stiffly in place and Jack replies in kind, creating a momentary deadlock of…well, something. "Hey, so," he breaks through the impasse (he is usually the one to do so), "Come on up."

         "Up?"

         I'm a bit confused, but it turns out, living on the top of the building, he has sole access to the roof, and it's even sort of nice and decorated, with a bit of a fence and a lawn.

         "It's okay to sit in the grass?" I ask, stopping at the edge of the lawn instead of immediately following after him.

         "It's got to be more acceptable here than anywhere else in the Capitol," Jack shrugs, "This is my place; it's my grass."

         I laugh at this like I laugh at so many things Jack says. He doesn't save up his jokes for me, but doles out his sense of humor out to whatever audience he's given, at parties, on television, in public appearances. That doesn't make him any less funny when he's with me. To some degree, all that goofing around is the true Jack Umber. Of course, some of it is also the mask he's put on to protect himself from a world that's treated him harshly from nearly every side and still expected him to carry on peaceably.

         The fact that I am thinking all these complicated things about him could probably be considered proof that I am in love with Jack Umber.

         He takes off his jacket and lays it down on the grass, gesturing with an enormously affected wave for me to come and sit on it. He settles down cross-legged and puts the basket between his left knee and the edge of the jacket. I walk across the grass to join him. It scrunches pleasantly under my sandals. In an average day in the Capitol, I walk over a wide variety of surfaces, but few of them are soft or give beneath my feet like this. Walking on grass is like being at home. I wonder if there's any place with lots of sand in District 1; if Jack even knows what that experience is like. I wish that I had some excuse to take him home.

         Together, his jacket and the fresh grass make a nice cushion.

         The morning sun reaches the point where the glinting off the crystal towers and reflective windows of some of the Capitol's tallest and flashiest buildings is unbearable if it hits you in the eye at just the right (or should I say wrong?) angle. It forces my eyes to stop wandering around the skyline and to keep them turned toward Jack.

         "You planned this," I accuse him.

         "Planned what?" he replies. He sounds sincere, but I already know that he's a good actor so even now I approach the subject carefully.

         "If I don't look toward you, the sun is in my eyes."

         "Well, there's an excuse to look at me as long as you want! ...But you know, by the same token, if I move my eyes even an inch off you the sun is blaring right around your head into them."

         "That doesn't mean you didn't plan it." I roll my eyes.

         "I'm too stupid to plan it," Jack counters. "But I don't think we'll have trouble if we look down at the food, so why not start our picnic breakfast?"

         For some reason, looking just at his hands is more embarrassing than looking at his face. This must be love or I'm going crazy, and how could I make it sane out of the Games just to go to pieces a year and a half later while a kind and funny man treats me to a meal on his roof? ...Of course, compared to the life I live in 4, eating breakfast with any man but Papa, on his roof, no less, would probably fit my general description of crazy.

         Jack picks the shell off a hard-boiled egg, but he does it slowly, in an inefficient way. He starts singing offhandedly. I can imagine he'd be doing it even if I weren't here, like he does it all the time by himself. He doesn't have some kind of beautiful voice or anything, but he's in key and, as in many things, he makes up what he lacks in skill, he makes up in good humor. It's rare that it's obvious that Jack isn't enjoying something. Even though he's told me how he really feels about the Games, he still smiles as he chats with Jeff Zimmer and Longinus Bronze about them year after year.

         "...Just to pass the time away. Can't you hear the whistle blowing, rise up so early in the morn; Don't you hear the captain shouting..."

         I can't understand all the words the way he mumbles them, but I can tell he's singing about train. ...I think. I peel an orange and just stare at him as he continues on singing to himself. With his eyes turned down and focused on his task, he doesn't notice that I'm watching him.

         "You could change the words around, or something," he remarks suddenly around a mouthful of egg. He swallows and wipes a napkin across his mouth. I try to pretend that I haven't been staring at him this entire time and Jack pretends that he doesn't know I have. He clears his throat and sings a little more. "Been surviving the arena, struggling 'gainst the fray; Been surviving the arena just to live another day. Can't you hear the anthem playing, see the tributes' faces in the sky; Can't you guess what they were thinking: 'please don't let me die.'"

         He's clever. "Have you been working on that for a while?"

         "In the shower," he chuckles, "Please feel free to conjure up that mental image."

         I can't reply fast enough to get out a good retort because my mouth is full of bread and honey.

         "You sing me a song, Mags," he urges, "How 'bout it?"

         "My singing isn't anything special," I try to dissuade him. I can carry a tune, but my voice isn't great. I sing on the boat sometimes back home, but I don't usually care for anyone other than Papa to hear me. "...And I'm not going to come up with anything as sharp as that either."

         "Doesn't matter," he rolls his shoulders in a lazy shrug, "I'd just like to hear it. A song from District Four."

         I grasp for a song and settle up the first one that comes to mind, that isn't some children's song that would embarrass me horribly to sing in his presence. I take a deep breath. ...This is kind of embarrassing. "Farewell and adieu, to you, Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain; For we've received for to sail for old Angland, And perhaps we shall never more see you again."

         I pause. It's one of those small moments that feels very long. Jack has watched intently the whole time. "Uh, there's more, but I don't know..."

         "That's okay," he nods. "Huh. Wow, that's interesting."

         "I don't know anything about Angland or Spain," I note before he asks. "They're just old places with a sea between them."

         "What was that word though?"

         Word? "Oh, ' _adieu_?' It means "goodbye," but in an old language they used to speak in some of the places that ended up in District Four."

         "I was wondering. I was going to ask if you had your own special language in Four."

         "Nah, just maybe a few words left over from old languages that have disappeared everywhere else."

         "Thanks for singing for me. It was nice."

         "Y-yeah," I stammer, "You're welcome." It's funny how at the same time I can be happy he's complimenting me and want him to stop. Jack Umber is a very confusing person.

 

         I don't spend the entire day with Jack. I wander a bit of the Capitol myself, swallowed up by already enormous libraries with even huger wings that you need special permits to enter, parks shaded by trees of every color, and all the other towering and glittering facets and facilities the center of the city has to offer.

         People smile at me on the street. I think they know who I am.

         In an openair market, I buy some pretty fruit to take home to Papa. Who knows what sorts they all are, but I'm sure we'll figure something out.

 

         I think about Jack. I try to think of more useful ways I can realistically prepare my young friends for the unfortunate possibilities of the arena and I borrow some books from a Capitol library in the service of stirring my mind in other directions. There are lots of books about the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome.

         I like stories better than non-fiction and straight information. I read _The Odyssey_ and can't entirely divorce the images it raises in my mind from those conjured by the arena and the Capitol. Only one man comes home. …and it takes him a long time.

 

 

         Spring warms the waters.

 

         There is only date of note on my calendar before the beginning of the next Games- Kayta and Raisin's wedding. It will probably be the only time I ever see District 7 again unless-until I bring home a new victor for 4. I find I am sort of savoring the opportunity.

         Because of the direction we are traveling, while I am picked up first, the same train will head north and collect Shy, Sunny, and Teejay as well before arriving in District 7. Nar admits that neither he, nor Cornelia Safflower, Victor Affairs' liaison to 6, are technically invited to the wedding- they are only along to chaperone us. Apparently Kayta tried to forbid his own liaison person, Catallus Braun, from attending, but was informed that the presence of certain Capitol personages was a requirement if he wanted to be allowed to have his marriage legally recognized. These included District 7's escort, several interested Gamemakers, and the president and his family. I'm kind of surprised the president wants to come- I don't know of any time postwar that he's visited any of the districts.

         Cornelia seems nice. Not as smug as Nar can come off (I think that's what can be off-putting about him to me). She tells me a bunch of factoids about 6. It sounds like she visits the district frequently. And, interestingly, some of the visits are at Sunny's request. She calls for back-up if she gets too worried about Teejay.

 

         In 5, Shy is happy to join us. She's already decided she's going to do my makeup for the occasion, "seeing as you don't look to have much experience with it on your own."

         I'm not sure there's any way to turn her down.

 

         Sunny and Teejay appear to be having a rather animated conversation with some transportation personnel on the platform and when Cornelia goes out to get them, Sunny just carried the conversation right on to include her. Teejay falls mostly quiet. "Hi Mags, Hi Shy," he greets us, and, gradually, Sunny's voice lowers as she makes some comments to Cornelia regarding someone in the Capitol ("I worry about her when you don't give me a report…").

         When we all get settled in and on our way again, Shy chats about how she thinks we should've gotten a chance to meet up ahead of the wedding "just girls" and thrown Raisin something called a "hen party."

         "What do chickens have to do with getting married?" Sunny wonders. "…Is this some kind of Five thing?"

         "What? No!" Shy blusters, "Don't girls get together for any fun before a wedding where you come from?"

         "Uh, not that I know about," Sunny blinks, "Of course, I haven't been a close friend to any brides."

         "The women in the family…and some friends might get together to knot the bridal net and…talk…and stuff, but it's not exactly a party," I reply to Shy's inquiring stare. But, then again, what do I know? I haven't been at any of these gatherings as a guest (I have, however, been as a toddler while my mother attended, being sort of communally babysat by Mrs. Mirande and some of my mother's friends- they say she had lots of friends).

         "Huh! And it always seemed to me like you know how to have a real party in Four," Shy observes.

         "They save it for some other time," Sunny guesses.

         "Fish parties…" Teejay contributes, his head drooping toward collapse onto the couch.

         Nar and Cornelia prevail upon Shy not to draw on his face while he sleeps.

         We're all filmed arriving in 7 as cheerful guests. There are quarters set up for us in the building where Capitol visitors stay when they come to 7 on business.

         "The men are all here!" Shy yells back to the rest of our group, having rushed on ahead.

         "'The men?'" Sunny shakes her head.

         "No, Pal's not here," I counter when I come into the room and count Jack, Hector, Gerik, and Beto variously lounging around.

         Gerik laughs, "Geez, Shy, don't forget about Pal! Even though even Beto has three inches and twenty pounds on him, he's still as much a man as any of the rest of us."

         "…Are they late?" Beto looks at the clock.

         "They're not really coming from further than Mags, right?" Jack considers the timetable, "Just a different direction."

         "Pal and Silk, Luna, and Emmy," Beto lists off who should make up the last group of visiting victors.

         "There's…potential for difficulty there," Sunny admits, sharing a small smile with the rest of our cohort.

         "And you know it ain't coming out of District Eight," Hector chimes in. "Ya want some tea, Sunny? Anybody? Beto's making tea."

         "Three-Style!" She obviously likes the sound of that.

         "……not for everybody…" Beto mutters, but it's pretty much too little too late and he goes to put more water on.

         It's a nice group. It feels pleasant to be here with most of our company without the pressure of the Games and the rising competition to bring back tributes pushing down on us. Beto's tea is green and bitter and everyone has some, although Teejay, Shy, and Jack all make faces while they drink it. I imagine this type of tea would go well with some of the food back home.

         "It's so easy to pick out all the sweet-tooths," Gerik heckles Jack and Shy in particular (there's really no good humor in saying such things to Teejay).

         "And then there's Mags," Hector throws back the rest of his cup, "Who hasn't met a food she doesn't like!"

         Gerik leans down and touches my arm. "He says that because he's exactly the same way. Worse than Jack."

         "Worse than Jack?" I raise my eyebrows.

         "Unbelievable, I know. I have a hard time imagining how his mother managed to feed him before he won his Games. An extraordinary amount of his salary must go to buying big pieces of meat from Ten." The men from Two pinch and swat at each other like big kids.

         The hour advances and gradually people drift off to sleep. Teejay goes to sleep on the couch, but Hector and Gerik feel sorry for him and decide to carry him off to bed. Eventually I am left with just the inner district men. Beto yawns and rises. "I'm done for the night."

         "Sleep well," Gerik wishes after him.

         "And how 'bout you?" Hector turns to me.

         "I'm waiting up for Silk and Pal…" But I'm tired too.

         "It's not going to be worth it," Hector states his thoughts, "You should turn in and see them in the morning. They're featherweights. They're probably sleeping on the train already."

         I reluctantly concede his point. The one who'll be awake is Luna. I would be lying if I said that I were particularly looking forward to seeing Luna. "Okay, I'm going to bed too," I say, getting up off the floor where I've been sitting beside their feet.

         "Good night," Jack says first.

         "Don't worry," Gerik calls after me, a bit groggy around the edges, "We'll make sure and keep an eye on this one so that nothing untoward goes on during the night."

         Hector laughs and laughs. I don't look back, leaving Jack's responding expression a mystery.

 

         The building is abuzz from first thing in the morning. I'm eating breakfast and my hair is a mess when Kayta shows up. "Thank you all for coming to my wedding," he bows deeply.

         "Such manners," Beto remarks, seeming to actually approve.

         "Now, I've gotta be off again, because there are all kinds of last minutes things to look after- you know how it goes- but, really, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

         "Yeah, Kayta!" Shy whoops. And slowly, from Jack to Pal to Sunny to Ferdinand along with Emmy, the clapping starts. All of us- all extending to include even Luna- applaud that Kayta has managed this much. Kayta Hiro did not die at sixteen- he cut his way through- and now he is twenty-six and still alive and strong and hopeful and able to love and be loved in return. He is as happy, I think, as any of us can hope for. He is happier, probably, than most of us will manage.

         "Pinesteeth!" he wipes at the edge of his eye, "That's embarrassing, you people!" But he means something like 'thank you.' He accepts our feelings. He hurries out of the building and the business of breakfast and dressing ourselves all up for the occasion resumes.

         There's a lot of joking around as a handful of stylists employed by Victor Affairs for the event (none of them ones I know, though one has brought along her son, Mark, a pretty boy of about eight or nine who likes to mix the colored makeups) set up two different styling rooms, divided by sex, to put the finishing touches on us, but, while Pal keeps coming in to fuss over Silk without any of us girls minding, the moment Hector looks in- seeing nothing particularly scandalous in the first place- everyone yells him out and Shy throws the first thing that comes to hand, which is a powderpuff.

         It's a wonderful time, really. I look around at these people and can't stop smiling to think how happy I am to be alive and here and with them. Silk is letting the little boy paint her eyelids and Emmy is being scolded for chewing on her fingernails and Luna is reading a book while a silver-toothed woman puts the final touches on her hair. Some of them are strange, but I am strange with them, so what does it matter?

         "Lemme fix that," Shy noses her way in and gets her hands all over me as she dabs and rubs a little bit of makeup on me to her liking.

         A few at at time, everyone goes out and gets set up the way they want us. The chairs out on the grass are all wooden and hand carved and similar, but not of a matching set. I ask about it and learn that it's a traditional style. A man with a surname of a type of wood (a common enough sort of surname in 7) with a little sprig of berries and evergreen pinned to his jacket, helping set things up with his daughter (young, but tall), explains that they're traditional 7 chairs- that sort of carving, but, of course, even Kayta doesn't own so many. People who had them were asked to loan them out for the occasion, to make everything look nice for the cameras. Raisin has promised to pay everyone back, one at a time, in meat dumplings and pecan pies. Mr. Teak seems quite pleased with this arrangement.

         I watch as the last touches are set up all around. Cameramen signal to each other from across the green that they're ready to go. Sunny takes the seat beside me.

         I pick the president out of the crowd, beside his daughter, then intently focus on not looking at them (avoiding unnecessary eye contact with the president is something of a priority for me).

         Someone plays a few introductory notes on a trumpet. The bride and groom process out from opposite sides and meet up front and center.

         Raisin's wedding dress is of a traditional District 7 style, though it was actually made in the Capitol in one of many concessions to the audience Kayta is attempting to woo. The dress is red and white, of a shiny fabric and it looks like there are details in it that would reveal themselves as patterns and pictures if I got a chance to examine them up close. With it, Raisin wears white slippers and a headdress of folded white cloth, surrounded by a ring of green spring leaves, stitched loosely together by a bit of gold thread.

         Kayta wears a suit of black and red with faint gold pinstripes on the vest. There are a few leaves sewn into his longish, brushed back hair.

         Mayor Bacon weds them in a concise ceremony. They say vows that reference the land and the trees and the way that trees show their age in accumulated rings. They exchange amber rings of their own and proceed over to the front of Kayta's house, the only lively dwelling among the group of prebuilt shells, where, together, they plant a tree.

         Sunny bursts into hysterical tears. I hold out my arms and let her cling to me, leaning her head down and hiding her face against my shoulder. I don't know what about this in particular makes her so sad, but I want to comfort her whatever the cause. "Oh, Sunny, pull yourself together," she chides herself.

         I pat her back and feel her tears soak into my dress.

         There is music on some crazy District 7 assortment of instruments- a little hand drum, a mandolin, a trumpet, a tuba, and a xylophone. The bride and groom dance.

         Sunny stems the tide of her tears. "Ah, I wonder what it's like to be in love," she sighs. "That's kind of beautiful."

         The band strikes up a new tune and Kayta picks out Silk as a partner to try and encourage the rest of us to dance. Raisin rescues Pal from his sudden loneliness. Mayor Bacon, his granddaughters, Raisin's mother, and many of the other various guests from 7 join in the dancing.

         Shy and Hector are trying their best at it. Ferdinand spins Emmy around in steps that fit the rhythm but aren't the moves that any locals are following. Jack offers a hand to Luna, but she turns away and finds a place to sit down beside Beto, who is watching intently and tapping his foot.

         "A couple of more festive sorts over here," I invite Jack.

         "Do me the honor then?" Gerik steps up.

         "Of course," I brighten at the offer. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jack shrug and move on to nonchalantly offer himself to Sunny instead.

         "He forgets that other people enjoy your company," Gerik remarks. There's a stiffness to his stride and he squints over to see what the more knowledgable dancers are doing so as to put himself to copying it.

         "I like you too, Gerik. Don't let me forget about you," I say, "Don't even give me a chance."

         "We're hopping a ride on Jack's team promotion via merchandise spirit this year. Hector and I got some shirts made up. Kids back home- well, there was a contest to come up with the design."

         "That sounds fun."

 

         The president doesn't dance (I didn't expect him too), not even when music is played in more of the Capitol style. The president's daughter does dance though, with Kayta, with one of the Gamemakers, with Jack.

         Her name is Star. She is twenty-five. It's been a long time since I even momentarily thought of her as anyone but "the president's daughter." I see her in person at these events and I see her more on television, but I don't know what her life is really like. I just know that she likes Jack. …And I don't feel jealous to watch them dance. I just wonder. How much does Star like Jack? How well does she know him? What does she think about all the times and places now we show up together?

 

         The reception following mostly acquiesces to be a paired down version of Capitol tastes. The president makes a toast to the bride and groom, which leaves both Kayta and Raisin smiling awkwardly. The president has seated himself (presumably) at the head table between Raisin and Silk. I wonder what Raisin's mother has to speak about with Pal and Star, who flank her. At least Pal is very easy to talk to, I suppose.

         I'm stuck between Beto and Sunny. Although I _think_ Beto has been enjoying the wedding more than he does most events, that doesn't mean he has any more interest in talking now than he usually does.

         But Sunny is in good spirits in spite of her earlier tears and with Teejay on her other side (between Sunny and Cornelia), I am exposed to just another example of her innate sweetness as she sees to it that Teejay eats, doesn't make a total mess, and maybe enjoys himself a bit? He seemed chipper the other day when we picked him up.

        

         We don't get to stay over another night- I think it's not considered wise to keep all of us victors together any longer than necessary outside the Capitol and its various constraints- so as the party fades down to just locals, we're all led off a pair or two at a time. Raisin _Hiro_ continues to be brilliantly kind and makes sure to thank everyone for coming before we're out of the Victors' Green.

         We're headed home in the same combinations that we came, just running backwards this time, down south to Four in the case of my group. What small amount of things we dragged along have been repacked in the meantime by various Avoxes and handlers.

         Jack manages to catch my eye before he's off on his own way, slowing down so that Hector, Gerik, and Beto continue on ahead of him. When Hector notices, he turns around, puts two fingers in his mouth, and makes an obnoxious whistle at us. He even winks. Gerik doesn't turn or probably so much as bat an eye. Beto looks like he'd like to slap all three of us- Jack, Hector, and me. "Hey," Jack says quietly, keeping his words between us, "Did you have fun?"

         "Yes- I'm so happy for Kayta and Raisin and it was nice to be with everyone."

         "Oh, good. I'm glad."

         "The high-and-mighties didn't take away any from your experience, I hope," I refer to the president and his daughter's frequent interaction with him.

         "Nah, I'm used to that. I'm used to them."

         "…Do you like weddings?" I ask on a whim.

         "Absolutely," he grins one last time before he turns away.

 

 

         I come home from the wedding with my thoughts attuned more than not to happy things.

         When the club meets up, everyone talks about the wedding. "Aaah, I wanna get married someday!" Maria sighs.

         "To who?" Estelle inquires.

         "I don't know yet!" She laughs, knowing how silly it sounds and bends over to touch her toes, the best stretcher of us all as we prepare to take a jog around the island.

         "You're pretty, Maria," Rodrigo replies, "And you're good with numbers…"

         "And you can do the splits!" Estelle adds, "I don't know anyone as flexible as you." (Jerrick blushes)

         We get up and running, Rodrigo and Che out ahead in front racing one another and Faline struggling along behind, the slowest, with everyone else pacing themselves variously in-between. Zeno, several steps ahead of me, takes note of Faline's speed and begins to fall back to match her pace. When Reza realizes what Zeno is doing, he joins in. The three of them start talking about school as they jog.

         I don't have it in my heart to tell them to pay more attention to their running.

         The boys are one thing. If Faline is called again, that might be it for me- all that I can take. Faline is here and alive and happy and that's proof that I can do something that has meaning. That even if I can only manage it at the risk of my own life, I can save someone. …that if I did it once, there's a chance that I can do it again (by some combination of luck and skill and sacrificing myself in some other way like Pal did?).

         As our lap of the island (more or less- the beach doesn't go around the entire perimeter and higher up there are fences around the yards set aside for each empty house held for some future victor that we have to avoid) draws to a close, Zeno starts to pull ahead again. …I find myself slowing down a bit to watch him. Boy, that kid can run.

         He runs on, skinny legs pumping, until he's caught Che and is barely a step behind Rodrigo.

         "Run, Zeno, run!" Estelle cheers for him.

         "What does Padre feed him?" 'Lito asks himself incredulously between heavy breaths.

         Peterzeno takes a flying leap and grabs my District 2-color bandanna off the driftwood stick I tied it to to mark the beginning of our course. "Ha ha ha ha!" he laughs triumphantly and flops down onto the sand.

         Che kicks angrily at the sand, but at least he bothers to do it turned away from Zeno so it doesn't blow into his face.

         Rodrigo sits down heavily. One by one, the rest of us join him- 'Lito, Jerrick, Estelle, me, Maria, Reza, and Faline.

         " _Si_ ," Zeno heaves a sigh, "Yes. I am getting faster."

         "You're also getting tricksier," Che pokes him with his toe.

         Zeno doesn't disagree. He smiles and smiles. "That too."

         He's too little, I think to myself. He's much too little. He better not even think about being a volunteer. …not this yet. But Peterzeno, who is scrawny and fast and full of tricks, will he grow up tall and strong? Will he be the right one to volunteer someday?

         I don't know.

        

 

         Spring transforms into the earliest flush of summer.

 

         With the summer comes the reaping.

 

         There are terrors both public and private in Panem without end for all of us. I don't dress up for the ceremony this year. I mean, I don't dress as casually as I would for a day on the beach, but there's no special outfit. I'm not sure what the point would be. Maybe if I looked really fantastically wonderful or strange it would attract attention that could be applied to sponsorships, but I don't see how I could manage that. Not on my own at least. I just don't have that kind of eye.

         In the crowd of girls, Faline shows me an enormous, forced grin and points at it. Okay, okay, I should smile for the cameras. She's right, though how she can manage that when I cannot is a thing of wonder.

         I rise for my cue (I will stand for my name on this stage or one that replaces it for the rest of my life), wave (maybe I won't always wave), and sit back down.

         I tune out Apple as she says something about 4 taking back their crown and whatever Mayor Current says after that. The mayor and I can't so much as glance at one another most of the time. Shaya's shadow lies between us. Sooner or later, will there be an empty gap like that separating me from every person in the district? Because it might not be a child. It might be a friend or a sibling or a lover.

         Papa and 'Lito are standing together far toward the edge of things. They get along well, I think.

         Apple picks the girl's name and nearly trips on her tongue saying it: "Anemone Monterey."

         "I volunteer!" protests a girl whose voice I recognize right from the first. It's Maria Rasif, from my 'club.' She pushes forward past Anemone, a tanned, trembling girl I don't know, maybe about fourteen or fifteen, and takes the stage. She is wearing a faded dress that used to be red and with it the reddest lipstick I have ever seen in my home district. There was always the possibility that she might have feared or faltered, changed her mind, but that lipstick is for the cameras. Maria came to the reaping with this outcome in mind.

         "You're, um, Marie?" Apple tries to show off by remembering.

         "Maria Rasif," she breathes, feeling the pressure of how real it is now. The dream begins now. A volunteer. A dream that will only break my heart (but if only, if only-).

         Apple calls the boy. And of all the possible choices, it is Mayor Current's son. Shaya's brother. What are the odds? Apple's face looks distinctly greener than the makeup should be making it. But Maria's call of "I volunteer," has a partner. "I also volunteer!" Jerrick Roy, another from the club, shouts and takes the stage.

         Apple doesn't try to guess or remember his name. "Maria Rasif and Jerrick Roy!" she applauds them as they shake hands. They look excited, even if they're also afraid. I can see the sweat run down the side of Jerrick's face.

         I don't have just one volunteer. I have two volunteers. Who know one another. Who will work together. Who will listen to me. Two volunteers, whose presence up here commands real respect and admiration from the crowd. Apple seems buoyed by the cheers that meet them as they make their last gestures to the assembled people before being swept from the stage.

 

         "If I die," Jerrick says to me as we sit in the back of the car taking us to the train station, "At least it's going to be as a hero, right?"

         "In the Capitol, they'll make me up very pretty, right?" Maria confirms and inquires, "If I die, will you make sure to get my _abuela_ a picture of me for her shrine where I look very pretty?"

         "Yes," I tell both of them, "Yes."

         Apple gapes that they're both so good, isn't it a bit soon to think that they'll die?

         "I never said I thought Jerrick and I would _both_ die," Maria laughs at her, "You jump to the strangest conclusions, Ms. Smitt!"

         To me it seems as if they've both misunderstood the other. My tributes (students, friends) decided to show me their tokens. Jerrick's is a homemade fishing lure of feather and twine. Maria's is a glass bead, with a District 2 style pattern, on a string around her neck. I daydream of either of them standing, a survivor, beside me. So, what do I do for them? What do I sell? …I have already gone and given them my heart.

        

         I'm a bit disappointed to see that Aulie hasn't been allowed to join us as early on this time. "Officially, he's just your approved speller," Apple shrugs, "They don't see what you could want with him now."

         Even Maria and Jerrick seem disappointed about it. Apparently, they expect Aulie as part of the packaged deal. Jerrick recounts a bit about how much Salvador seemed to adore him. Apple wilts a little at recalling Salvador. And, yes, Apple, I think to myself, these ones will be like Salvador again to some extent. They'll be good and try hard and when they're gone you'll miss them.

         "Any general Games thoughts?" I ask them.

         "I'd like to do what your partner did, actually, if I can," Jerrick states. "I'd like to use the arena- you know, the terrain, mutts or whatever- to do some of the killing for me. I want as few nightmares of my hands touching some bloody body as I can."

         "It depends on the arena though," Maria muses, "Kind of a lot. I mean, the shark was a boon for that. Last year, not so much."

         "I have no interest in setting the arena on fire," he scrounges up a smile from his rapidly depleting supply.

         "We'll see what we get." Maria holds out her hand and Jerrick takes it.

         "Do you want to watch the other reapings?" I inquire next. As volunteers, I can expect that they will take in everything up until the arena itself with a certain level of calm. They've watched the Games. They made the decision to come, either separately or together, one way or another. And I know them enough. They can handle the predictable part.

         "Yeah," Jerrick agrees, "I'd like to see how the other victors act when their tributes get picked."

         "Do you think that part's especially important?" I'm curious.

         "Well, last year," Jerrick shrugs, "Silk won, but I don't think there was anything about the way Silk acted or looked that would make you think it was going to be her. But Pal was all together and stuff."

         It's not like Pal really could know how it was going to go- but I'm sure he knew what he meant to do in general from the start, so this is an interesting point to raise. "I'll have to watch it again and pay attention for that."

         So we watch and I listen to what Maria and Jerrick say as they watch the others. There are double volunteers in Two, which they like, because of the similarity to them, but they don't think of much to say about how cool Gerik and even Hector play the situation. They're not impressed with Pal, who is jittery this time, or Luna, who continues to play a convincing 'I could care less' as tributes unrelated to her are called, but Beto glints with intensity and Kayta brushes against the edges of a look that could be considered smug when the boy from his district takes the stage. "Do you think he'll get a lot of sponsors for his tributes because he asked for that?" Maria wonders.

         "I'm not sure," I admit, "I mean, his tributes seem decent, so maybe? I don't know how many promises he wrung out of people around the time of the wedding…"

         "But…you'll get us lots of sponsors too, right?" Jerrick hopes, "People like you, Mags and you're pretty visible and all…"

         "I'm going to try my best, and I'm sure I'll get some for you, but I can't say I've got the best hang of how to find sponsors yet."

         Maria folds her arms and looks up at the ceiling, sorting through her thoughts. "Will Jack help you?"

         "I suppose he would if I asked." With tips, that is. I won't, and probably shouldn't, ask him for help actually getting sponsors. I'm not going to mention to either of them that he helped out a little personally with money for Salvador. I don't know if he'll repeat the gesture, even if it's still considered a lawful action regarding sponsorships.

         "There should some kind of 'Go District Four!' t-shirt," Jerrick says.

         It's not a bad idea. I'm included in the numbers of people who liked Jack's silly t-shirt last year after all. "I'll ask Jack about who made his shirt."

         "And when you have it, make him wear it," Maria is tense, but she smiles anyway. I'm sure her personal style and beauty will attract attention in the Capitol. "It can be a trade off so it's fair. You wear his and he wears yours."

         "Except Jack is on TV more," Jerrick remarks.

         "But Mags is his girlfriend," Maria insists, "And men like to do the bigger favor."

         Jerrick isn't so sure about this and he admits he's never really had a girlfriend, but isn't beat quite that easily because Maria hasn't had a boyfriend either. Maria looks to Apple for backup. I don't think she wants to take sides between these two (she's probably glad that they get along this much more than Shaya and Salvador did). "…not every boyfriend," Apple answers, "But more of them than not, I think."

         "And Jack loves to make big, dramatic gestures," Maria concludes.

 

         We speed to the Capitol where I will push myself to compete for extra coverage of my tributes from the start, making sure that camera attention falls on them the moment Aulie meets us.

         Maria's bold introduction helps. "Aulie, I'm Maria and this is Jerrick!"

         "I have to admit I don't always remember all the details of what I see dear Mags getting up to back home, but I am absolutely sure I have seen both of you before," he addresses them, hands on hips.

         "You're our grand-coach, I think," Jerrick holds out his hand and they start shaking hands all around (Jerrick even gets Apple and Aulie to shake hands- "In the interests of team spirit").

         Onlookers are responding to this sight in good humor and more eyes and ears stick to us even as Shy and her group arrive and one would assume become the center of attention for at least a few moments. I want this attention for my tributes, but I also don't want Shy to become particularly aware of it. I'd prefer to stay her friend. I hurry everyone along and Apple jokes at "how responsible" I am.

         I accompany the team to our quarters in the Training Center where a message is waiting for me from Jack, a hand-written note saying: "Color commentary? Love to have you back. Be at the studio by 1 or call me." I don't see any reason to refuse. I show the note to Apple and arrange for transportation. I leave Aulie and Maria in a rousing "game" of "fashion show"- involving Maria cheerfully trying on every piece of clothing provided in her quarters in various combinations while Aulie offers his suggests and quizzes her about her responses to various first-aid and survival scenarios. Jerrick does some routine stretches and exercises. Apple promises to look after everyone in my absence.

 

         The man at the main desk in the lobby directs me up to the same area I waited, was made up, and worked in last year to this same purpose. "Jack will be pleased," he says.

         A stagehand tells me that Kayta called and asked to be part of this year's commentary, but Jack put him on hold, still preferring to have me. Another studio employee admits that he's surprised that Silk wasn't picked for the job, having assumed that Jack would repeat last year along the theme of seating in with the previous year's victor (one of the men in charge of the lighting, on the other hand, avers that Jack _did_ try to pull in Silk, but she declined in favor of sticking with her tribute).

         It isn't really all that much time for anything to be found, but I get the idea to ask if there's any easy attained footage from my Tour that can be aired, "Since I know both of my tributes this year appear in it." The request gets batted around here and there with one of the women from the editing room promising to see what she can do.

         I'm hustled off into hair and make up before I get a chance to speak with Jack, who catch sight of, briefly, chatting animatedly with a familiar-seeming person I think may direct these programs.

         The hair stylist with the plum-colored locks still has her little dog that shares my name, though not with her today. She shows me a picture on her digital device. "She had puppies," the woman informs me cheerfully, "Six and all healthy!"

         Because this is the dog called "Mags" I feel rather awkward, where I think I would otherwise find this a pleasant subject for small talk. "…are you…going to keep them all?" I try.

         "One, I think. Two dogs is about enough for me. And I have a friend who wants the little white one. I suppose I'll just have to start asking around the studio and such after who might want the others."

         "Hmm…"

         "Do you think Jack might be interested?"

         Now that gets a jolt of surprise out of me. "I-I don't know," I answer honestly, shaking my head.

         She tells me the names of all six puppies. All names in circulation in District 4. Carlos, Diana, Nicholas, Annabelle, Pacifico, and Faline. Faline is the little white one. She's the smallest and possibly the cutest.

         The makeup man is easier to deal with, though has something of a related manner on his mind because he's recently adopted a new baby and shows me pictures of her along with his older daughter, who I would guess to be about three years old herself.

         When I bring this up to Jack (it is far too embarrassing to mention the hair stylist's dog), he laughs and tells me he doesn't know how many people have privately asked him for his opinion about how soon it will be before Kayta and Raisin have a child because Kayta won't answer anything but, "It's none of your business," in a nice manner either publicly or privately.

         "They think that maybe he'd tell me, I suppose," Jack shakes his head, "I don't know if I'd be Kayta's first choice for that kind of talk though. Honestly, I don't even know if they want kids."

         "There are a lot of reasons to hesitate," I share my opinion, "But I do imagine Raisin likes kids. I guess I can see it going either way. …But they didn't rush things this far. They're not going to rush into that."

         "Yeah, they're smart people."

         "…Jack, I wanted to know about your First Hunger Games t-shirt," I don't forget to pursue this important line of inquiry, "Who made it for you and all-"

         In regard to these questions, Jack tells me what he did, but goes on to ask what I'd like them to look like…which I haven't quite figured out at this point, but I make some remarks about colors and scribble a tiny wave design on a studio notepad for him (my drawing skills have not improved since the last time I doodled in front of anyone). "I'll see what I can do for you," he promises.

         "I'll take what you told me to Apple or Erinne," I insist, "You don't have time for that right now."

         He seems about to protest, but we don't have time to get through this whole discussion before the scheduled time for our comments to be recorded. Jack assures me he'll finish filling me in on the details afterward.

         …But it turns out he also isn't quite ready to put the topic on the shelf yet. "Mags has been asking me about my special t-shirt from last year," he addresses the cameras. "Maybe you remember it?" He pulls off a move more or less like I imagined last year, as he removes the innocuous blue shirt that had been visible to the naked eye to reveal his same green 'First Annual Hunger Games' t-shirt underneath. "If you missed out on one last year, there will be plenty more opportunities for you to pick up one of these this time around- or another piece of team-boosting memorabilia to support District One! -Or whatever district you prefer."

         "I ask him some questions and he tries to make a sale," I wryly level my own charge to the viewers.

         "She's just sad not to have the same pitch to make to you, dear viewers," Jack puts his arm around my shoulders. "…However, booster gear for 'the Mighty D-4' should be available soon enough, seeing as Mags is hard at work tapping the right people to concoct it. As a matter of fact," his free hand moves about beneath the table, reaching for something, "It might look something like this!" In one smooth motion, he pulls out a blue and yellow cap, and puts it down on my head.

         It settles more or less between my buns and I raise a hand to adjust its position, though I think it would be better to leave it on and let the cameras take it in than remove it to examine the design. I will restrain my curiosity. I'll get to see it soon enough.

         This time I don't need much prompting to talk about the tributes and the reapings with Jack. I am ready to say anything I can think of to say about Maria and Jerrick to bring good attention their way. My inquiries about prior footage pay off this time as Victory Tour clips are produced that show the two of them hanging about with me and the others. Jack jokes that I've taught them everything I know about weaving, and also, possibly, many things about the various uses of Crispco cracker tins, joke-telling, and "how to be much kinder and more cheerful than any situation calls for."

         In reply, I ask Jack what he could teach his tributes.

         "How to stay down to earth in the face of excessively undeserved fame," he deadpans.

        

         The cap he had made for me turns out to be about as flashy as I should have expected. The majority of it is yellow, but the brim is a light blue, building back into a darker blue to form a wave design that splashes up the front of the cap, complete with a white edge and speckles to indicate sea spray. On top of the wave, in big black characters the cap announces what it is it's advertising: D4.

         Jack looks pleased with himself as he watches me look it over. "…Thank you," I say, not exactly sure how to handle his going above and beyond. …for a fellow competitor of sorts, no less. I'm impressed at how much the cap has generally in common with my t-shirt idea. …Maybe Jack and I just have similar tastes.

         I put the cap back on. "Thank you very much."

         No matter how much time I spend with him, I still find much about Jack to be incredibly perplexing. I mean, I don't expect him or any of my other fellow mentors to engage in any activity that might sabotage me, but I also don't expect such active help in boosting my tributes and their chances. …yet I don't think I can ask him about it outright- not here in the television studio, of course, but not back at his place either- and expect an honest answer.

         "Lots to do then, I suppose," he follows up his 'you're welcomes.' "I've got a couple of tributes to cheer on to giving their best. Miss Sincerity's a bit keyed up with nerves."

         "Yes, I thought she seemed…tenser than average," I agree. I never want to say anything bad about the tributes for the broadcast- that's neither my job nor my nature- but it's true that girl didn't put on the 'smiling even if reluctant' performance that most of 1's tributes have managed the past several years. "…And I have mine to see to. And the shirts to work things out with. …and the caps?"

         "I left the box of caps over at Victor Affairs. I've sent the paperwork about them on to your escort already. So… don't you work yourself into the ground either," Jack replies. He touches my arm. I move away, despite it being an innocuous enough gesture. I have to be strong now and focused. It's too much kindness that would break me. The cap is more than enough.

         I pick at the hem of my shirt. "…I'll be seeing you around."

         "If it matters to your tributes, I say 'hi,'" he offers.

 

         The man at the main desk compliments my new cap on my way out.

 

         Even without a boost from Jack, Kayta drums up his own soapbox. When I rejoin my tributes, I find they're watching him on television. He's talking up his tributes and signing pictures for fans and thanking all the "wonderfully generous" people who have already started sending in sponsorship money.

         "The coverage keeps cutting all over the place," Jerrick informs me, "He's not the only one fighting for it."

         I don't duck out of watching the reaping recap that includes my own comments this year. I still don't feel completely at ease watching and hearing myself on television in that manner, but Maria and Jerrick both seem extremely happy with what I say and show about them. The whole group is even more enthused over the cap when they see me wearing it on the show. Both Jerrick and Maria try it on and Apple uses her comm device to take their picture.

         Aulie promises that he'll be the first to buy one and, reviewing the sort of invoice Jack sent over, promptly declares that the nineteen left in the shipment (minus the one he gave me) are too few. "Mags, you and Four are far more popular than that. All he's doing is whetting the public's appetite."

         "That might be the point, Aulie," I point out. "…And, anyway, I should be paying Jack back for these ones first off! It's not his duty to support my district."

         "It's a bit difficult having that sort of conflict of interests with your boyfriend, isn't it," Apple gives a little frown along with her rhetorical question. Despite her concerns about mussing her elaborately coiffed green hair, she gives in to Maria's requests that she too try on the hat and take a picture.

         Aulie rings the sponsorship office in front of all us in the interests of making a pledge in return for a cap of his own. Of course, by this point, some zealous fans and/or swift buyers have already queued up for the opportunity to have one, so not only is he first, but, according to the person on the other end of the line, Jack- who could've just taken one to begin with- had left the box along with his own order from the beginning. Aulie puts his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone as he turns back to level a casual glare at us, "And he wants it _autographed_. He told them to let everyone know about that part. And how much more autographing would cost."

         "Oh." I have to think about how to respond. "Aulie," I offer, "I'll autograph yours for free."

         I think Apple laughs the hardest of all. This year each of us is in good company.

 

 

         My volunteers' nerves don't show until it seems about the right time for them to be getting to sleep. Neither is too keen on going off on their own. I defuse some tension by telling them I won't tell anyone if they decide they want to share one bedroom. "Oh my gosh, Mags!" Maria rattles back at me, "I wouldn't be here with him if I wanted to get together with Jerrick!"

         As the female tribute was called first again this year, this sort of indicates that they did discuss their volunteering with each other beforehand.

         "Yeah," Jerrick agrees, "It's only logical not to doom your relationship that completely. You've gotta go with someone who's just a friend and help 'em out and then whichever one comes back all rich and noble and stuff has to use their new advantages to net someone great and have the happiest life they can and all."

         "Oh, so that's how you're doing these things in Four now?" Aulie inquires.

         "Somethin' like that," Jerrick concludes.

 

         They're wound down enough then to handle themselves. Aulie, impatient about shipment times, goes down to Victor Affairs' office and brings back his new hat. It feels awkward writing on a hat. I want to write small, but he encourages me to cover up as much of the yellow area as I feel like- that it's better if it shows.

         "To Aulie," I inscribe the side of the cap, "The best coach I could ask for. Love, Mags."

         "You look like an idiot," Apple declares when he puts it on sideways, "But the right kind of idiot anyway."

 

*****

 

         The costumes for my tributes this year share a certain feature with last year's in flowiness, though the colors have shifted to shimmering whites and golds and red. Both Maria and Jerrick wear little crowns of what look like glass bubbles rising up from their heads. "Koi, I'm going to guess?"

         "Koi are related to goldfish, right?" Spring replies, "Because it's something like that."

         "Close enough then," I agree.

         I mean to only wish Maria and Jerrick the best here- to avoid unnecessary chatter because that's when I'm most likely to say something stupid and bring them down or distract them from the important things, but I still manage to trip all over my tongue. …I suppose that's what good about our already knowing each other decently though. This doesn't seem to put either of them off their game. Maria even laughs and asks me if I like their makeup (it's equally extravagant and bright on both of them, but Maria likes it, while Jerrick is kind of embarrassed).

         "I'll be watching you, so be good!" I conclude.

         "I'm worried about scaring the horse if I'm bad," Jerrick tries to laugh like Maria, but can't quite manage it. "I'll make sure Maria doesn't do anything bad either."

         "Oh, like what?" she's challenging this assertion as I walk away.

         "Sit with me, sit with me!" Hector shouts out as soon as I reach our sort of bleacher seating.

         Shy kicks his shoulder from the row behind him, "You jerk!"

         "I hope you didn't say that just to beat Shy to the punch." I feel cautious when it comes to anything I'm concerned might start up some sort of ill will between my fellow victors.

         "Nah, I want to sit with you. And still no Jack down here, but they've gotta add Silk up above, so it's going to get crowded."

         "…If your tributes want an alliance, I think our girl will go for it." Gerik leans over and whispers to me.

         Hector doesn't think 2's boy will be so open. I have a feeling that between these two opposing forces, a cross-district alliance isn't going to work. …Not this year. But Hector, Gerik, and I are all, more or less, trying to play the same game. It's not impossible to imagine that someday our personal feelings and those of our tributes will align. At the very least, I know Hector and Gerik will always be so kind as to hear me out.

         Hector and Gerik aren't like Shy with her comments. They watch the parade and speech in polite silence. The only remark I really take in from any of my colleagues during the event is when Silk complains to Pal that some member of the style team has altered the costumes in a way that apparently he'd told her he wouldn't.

         From what I can see, Maria and Jerrick hold up nicely.

         But they're tired, so I give them extra dessert and send them off to bed early.

 

         I run into Jack when I Apple and I are sending them off the following morning. I hear him saying goodbye to his tributes- Sincerity and Charlie. "'Sincerity'," Apple repeats once the girl is out of earshot.

         "Trendy kind of name, I know," Jack replies, "There's a niche audience for that."

         "No," Apple hesitates, "I wouldn't say I don't like it. A little strange, but still pretty."

         "So, I take it this is a free moment for you?" Jack looks down at me.

         "What do you need?" I ask calmly.

         This is just the cue he needs to reach back and whip a cap out of his back pocket- a twin to the cap that I'm wearing again today. "Sign my cap?"

         Apple laughs. "You make it seem like she's a movie star." Then a funny look crosses her face- "But I suppose she's better than a movie star to you."

         I clutch Jack's cap in my hands and there's no way I can look up at Apple now. I'm not looking at Jack's face either, but his tone sounds normal as he replies. Yes, he would take this in stride. Of course. He's Jack. "Now I've got it!" I imagine him patting Apple's arm or shoulder, assuming he thinks she'll let him. "See, Aulus knows training and Mags knows how to make a good show, so I figured you brought something different to this team. You understand love and feelings. It's a whole team of romantics. That's really sweet."

         She makes a funny sort of laughing noise I'm not sure I've ever heard her make before. Her reservations about Jack have been, at least momentarily, ripped in two. "Ah, my, thank you." She's flattered.

         "And you've got the fashion end of things pinned down too."

         "Mags, I should leave you two," Apple declares sweetly when I manage to peek up and momentarily meet her gaze, "You're both in the midst of such a busy time and here you are with a free moment for talking and I'm taking it all up."

         "S-sure," I stutter as she swirls around, layers of skirt flowing out around her like she's a jellyfish drifting along, and takes off, heels clicking on the floor.

         Jack has his arms crossed and is looking pleased. "Well, you really pulled that off," I address him.

         "All I needed was an opportunity to finally express my true feelings to her in a context in which I was sure she would actually stop and listen. She's a reasonable enough lady."

         "…what sort of thing should I write on your hat?"

         "Whatever you think seems right," he does nothing to narrow the matter down for me, simply passing me a fancy pen.

         "To Jack," I write, "-Mags." And, putting aside all reservations about my virtual inability to draw, I scribble a little fish beside that and circle it with a heart. I put the cap back onto the pen and hand both items back, embarrassed.

         "Aww, that's so cute," Jack examines my doodling, "Thank you." He puts the cap on, but turns it around backwards, "I've got some sponsors to meet with, so it's probably best not to be declaring my love of another district far and wide." …And yet he's not taking it off? There's an element of his typical sort of calculation to that- that his relationship with me adds another layer of interest to him, something new for all the people who have known and watched him for years, and, by association, to his tributes.

         But I don't remark on it. Jack is the one engineering most of it, but the benefits go both ways. "…You're welcome. Best of luck."

 

         Nar drops by with about ten more of the caps for me to sign to various interested parties. To Actegarde, to Alcestra, to Chipel, to Gaelen, to Marcus Luminous, to Kitty, to Rajiv, to Aramis. Although Nar grumbles that it would've raised more money to auction the caps, I feel better that they sold out based on speed and not due to exorbitant prices. It's easier to convince myself that I'm signing these off to fans, not people who are going to try and sell these back to fans at cut-throat rates (then again, presumably anyone who wants the cap signed to a particular name is either a fan themselves or knows a certain fan they plan on giving them too).

         Apple goes out with some other escorts she gets along with to discuss sponsorship gathering strategies- people she trusts "not to keep any too marvelous secret from me." Aulie laughs at this and makes some casual phone calls to a group that consists largely, I think, of people he knows personally, but also the Crispco Crackers publicity representative.

         There's a little bit of work to go around for everyone. Including- of course- most importantly- above all- Maria and Jerrick. But I can honestly say I feel all right about my tributes when I go to sneak what peeks I can at the training. Jerrick doesn't look bad at all as he follows instructions from one of the Center staffers on how to handle a staff in a fight. There are actually young tributes regarding Maria with a bit of trepidation as she pulls her chin up over a metal pole.

         Maria and the girl from 2 horse around a least a little bit each day, although both Maria and Jerrick seem to take the time to interact with a large swath of the field. On the final day of ordinary training, the girl from 2 eats with them.

         Gerik calls me down to the lobby to meet him in the evening. No official alliance is on. "I'm disappointed," he admits, "But the boy wouldn't have it and they're still the sort of kids where district loyalty comes first."

         "It's okay. It was a nice thought. …I imagine they won't be unnecessarily aggressive toward each other at least."

         "I wouldn't be one to encourage it. I'll leave the messy, the cruel, and the unusual to the Gamemakers, thank you very much," he sniffs.

        

*****        

 

         Each day, from what they say and what I see, Jerrick and Maria stick things out. I think they do really well. I hope they understand how proud of I am of them. I feel that I have tributes here who are inspiring me to also do my best. Not to say there aren't any concerns on their part, but, as far as I can tell, they keep their apprehensions- which are only natural- between the members of our team.

 

         "If I die, it means I did a really stupid thing, huh?" Maria muses when it's just the two of us.

         "I want you to come home," I tell her, "I want you to meet someone great and get married like you said you wanted. But no matter what anyone else thinks, I want you to know that I'll never think it was a stupid thing to do, Maria. It was a brave and incredibly kind choice to make."

         "I wanted to be like you," Maria sniffs, "So it is kind…? I wanted to be that kind."

         "It's amazingly kind. And you're way braver than I am- I could tell from the way you came made up for the reaping that you'd thought it out beforehand. I don't know if I could've done that. …I was way stupider," I insist.

         Maria starts to smile again. "You would've done it," she counters.

         "I don't know." I can't completely give her that one.

         "At least we were a good example," she concludes, "With Jerrick and me both going. So it's not like only you pulled it off. Anyone who works up enough courage can do it. …Now I just hope one of us is lucky enough to pull off the next part."

         "I'll do everything I can," I hug her.

         "Thank you for being my friend. Make sure Faline and Estelle and all know that they meant tons to me too."

 

         The scores are announced. It's a tie, just like last year. But these are two scores of 8. The only district that scores cumulatively better is Two.

         "Mags?" Maria prompts me.

         "She's bowled over," Apple speaks for my silence.

         There are higher single scores than those Maria and Jerrick have received, but not many. The highest is an 11 for the boy from 2. The 2 girl and the 7 boy both receive 10s (Kayta must be pretty fired up over that). The 10 boy takes the only score of 9. There are three other scores of 8. Everyone else is lower. Of all those results, the only one that surprises me is what comes out of 1- a 4 for the girl and a 6 for the boy.

         "What do you think of the Ones?" I quiz them. I have this uneasy suspicion of deception in those scores. …then again, like Salvador, they could've botched their performance in a way not typical of their usual ability level. It's not like there aren't plenty of terrible scores. I shouldn't be suspicious. (But Jack. Jack might- It seems like something Jack would do, telling them to downplay their abilities)

         "She's super nervous," Maria offers in favor of the girl's score's accuracy, "I mean, she might be able to do all sorts of stuff when push comes to shove, but she kept dropping things during training. …he seemed strong though."

         "It doesn't mean he's not nervous too," Jerrick speaks up, "Or stupid. Maybe stupid because he's nervous. I wouldn't want to fight him, but I doubt it would tax either of us too much to out-think him."

         "Hmm." I can think about it, but I'm not sure there's any solution to be found anyway. I hope for an opportunity to bring Jack's tributes up with him- everything he said about them during the recap commentary was generically supportive, but I've seen enough to get the impression he would always speak of his tributes this way.

         "How will we celebrate these amazing scores?" Apple takes over in her impressively optimistic way.

         My attention drifts... I think about how Gerik was unique in discussing a potential team-up across district lines with me. I wonder if many of the other victors have had these sorts of discussions. If there's any particular formula for handling them. Since Jack and I… _work_ together- or at least complimentarily- so much, what does it mean (or not) that he doesn't bring that possibility up?

         It's not as if no tributes ever ally with someone from another district, myself included, but I can't say there were any such alliances that came to fruition last year. As the tributes watch one another and then see those scores, do they hope to hitch their star to some tough up and comer?

         "If you could team up with anyone here from another district, who would it be?" I ask, cutting awkwardly into a conversation about…well, designer bubblegum, I think, because Apple's brought some from home and everyone's discussing the different flavors.

         "Leda," Maria tells me without hesitation, "You know, the girl from Two. And that was before her score, also."

         "Well, Liam, if I was going by how I liked 'em," Jerrick says, "Liam O'Rize. He was the baker's boy back in Five. I don't think he's going to do so well though. He's got a real gentle disposition. Trainer had a hard time just getting him to throw the hardest punch he could as practice." He shakes his head. "Leda's okay though. I would've worked with her if everyone had lined up and said yes."

         "I see," I nod, "Um, thank you."

         "Mags, there's gum that tastes like mango," Maria entices me, "Try it, okay?"

         I'm not about to say no to that.

 

*****

 

         I dream about an arena that's bubbling with volcanic material. Steam rises off of stinking tar. In the typical manner of dreams, whatever controls these images can't decide if I am back in the arena myself or if I am mentoring tributes there (I get the vague impression they are Maria and 'Lito, dreams having no regard for 'Lito's being too old).

         I wake up hoping for a different arena for my tributes. The one in my dream seemed plenty plausible for Gamemaker tastes assuming they could pull it off.

         I don't mention it to anyone. No need to let curious ears snag that one or take it away to where more suspect sorts of individuals might hear.

 

         I suppose it stands to reason for volunteers, but Maria and Jerrick have both considered various topics they might discuss in their interviews, so instead of starting from scratch, I get to have them run these ideas by me. Apple seems impressed by how far they've thought this out ("Particularly in light of the…well, the things you said in the car right after the two of you volunteered.").

         "I volunteered because I wanted to be heroic. Because I wanted to be kind like Mags."

         "I have a little half-brother ten years younger than me. I hope his name is never called, but even if it were someday, I wouldn't be able to volunteer for him. I volunteered for a boy with no brothers, but who had lost his older sister last year. If my little brother is called, young and unprepared, I hope that someone will do the same for him."

         "I received my score of eight for something I did with a weapon. …And, no, I can't tell you which one. You know, to keep everyone on their toes." ("You have a great laugh for this thing, Mari," Aulie speaks up to tell her his thoughts.)

         "And my score was not for the same thing as Maria's. We are a versatile bunch out of Four."

         Apple offers a stock sort of question: "What would you like to see in the arena?"

         "The same weapon I used so well in front of the judges," Maria smiles.

         "Water and lots of it," Jerrick goes for a different angle, "And not salt water, preferably. Water I can drink as well as swim in."

         It's fun, in a weird way, trading these questions and remarks with them, and the talk keeps on going, floating in and out of various spaces when Erinne and her partners arrive. There's red again for Maria, reprising the color, if not the style, of the parade outfits, and for Jerrick, an outfit that leans heavily on the orange, which I expect to look a bit strange, but he actually looks quite good.

         There are starfish-shaped ornaments for both of them to wear in their hair. Maria's wavy hair is teased into a big…well, I'm not sure there's a word for this look in particular since it's mostly left loose, but it's almost like a dark halo hovering low toward the back of her head.

         "You're going to get more caps made, right?" Spring presses me on the matter as she puts a bit of makeup on my face to to hide a persistent bit of acne.

         "It's in the pipeline now, right, Apple?"

         "Yes, indeed," she assures me as she helps Jerrick with his the rather elaborate ties on his sandals.

         "She wanted one _so bad_ ," Erinne fills me in, popping up from behind Maria's wave of hair to make sure I can see the extra emphasis provided by her expression, "But even though we both called in, we were too late, they were all sold. …And there was no way I was going to let her buy one of the ones some jerk is trying to resell on the Games-Net Bazaar! For five times the original price- and when we work with you?!"

         "She told you, Spring," Irish chuckles.

         "Well, as long as I can get one I don't mind waiting," Spring huffs.

         "You'll all be taken care of, ladies," Aulie promises.

         "You're both beautiful," Erinne puts down the brush in her hand down into her kit of supplies, "And, as far as I'm concerned, ready to go."

         "Any last questions for Mags while it's just us?" Apple prompts them as we ride the elevator down and I try not to pay attention to that weird feeling the elevator gives me (it's not awful- I just can't figure out what my problem is with elevators).

         Jerrick leans back and forth on his fancy new sandals, heel to toe, heel to toe. "Nah, I think I'm good."

         "If they ask about boys, I'm not going to mention Rey. I don't want to make things awkward for him," Maria leans over and whispers, to make sure that I know this in advance, "I mean, since I don't think he even knows that I like him."

         "I promise I won't bring him up," I reply.

         Back in the staging area, everyone is properly signed in. It's sort of nice, in a weird way, watching Maria lean over to catch the attention of and say something to the girl from 2 in the same way I've watched her talk to Estelle and Faline on the beach.

         "Fishsticks," Kayta nods his head as he comes past me, leading in his tributes. The girl doesn't look at me. The boy waggles his eyebrows and makes some remark to Kayta in dialect that leads to Kayta swatting the back of his head in return. 7's escort starts to get upset about this, but I don't stick around to see the outcome.

 

         I am seated in roughly the same place as last year, between Beto and Shy, but Apple is behind me this time and she taps on the back of my seat so I turn around, then gives me a huge smile.

         I notice Pal and Silk running along the aisle, the last victors to be seated before the program begins. I wonder what they were doing that took so long. Of course, Pal was exceedingly busy last year, but I don't see him trying to pull the same thing twice, even assuming it would work… How does having brought home a new victor change one's feelings towards your tributes after that? Pal is unique still- the only one among us who really did something concrete to bring their district's second victor home (I mean, Hector and Gerik seem like equals; Sunny looks after Teejay rather than vice versa).

         Mr. Zimmer has a new, fancy suit, made out of little mirrored pieces that catches the light in…a sort of annoying fashion. I'm not sure how fully this was thought through.

         The girl from 1, Sincerity, is a weak opening to these interviews. She's nervous, but she holds it together more or less. Things move along. I try not to get too invested in the stories or mannerisms of any of the other tributes. Focus, focus, focus. And then… "Maria Rasif!"

         She looks beautiful. She talks about volunteering first, and then, connecting it to how confident she seems, Mr. Zimmer moves to plans for the future if she were to be the next victor.

         "If I win the Games, I would like to get married. Yes, I know what you're going to ask, Mr. Zimmer," she smiles winsomely, "I don't have a special boy just yet… But think of all the boys who will talk to me if I come home a victor!"

         "I have a hard time lots of boys aren't talking to you already," Mr. Zimmer plays along.

         "Actually, back home, I'm kind of shy… It's sort of freeing to be among so many strangers. And then there's Mags- seeing her with Jack might have raised my standards." Maria laughs.

         "I think she raised my standards too," Mr. Zimmer quips.

         I can hear Apple laughing behind me. I don't cover my eyes, but I do raise my hands to my reddening face. "Oh?" Maria asks the emcee, "So who do you like?"

         And that gets plenty of laughs, but he's not about to answer her.

         Departing down to her seat, Maria passes "Jerrick Roy!" and they exchange a semi-surreptitious smack of hands between them.

         Jerrick is grilled also on the topic of volunteering and promises that audiences should expect to see 4 field many more volunteers in the future. Mr. Zimmer asks if there's a prior connection between 4's two tributes and Jerrick explains that both of them hang around with me. He also talks about his much younger brother and his favorite subject in school, which is, well, fish, actually. Their habits and biology. He brings up some things about raising fish in special farms that I don't know anything about it.

         Mr. Zimmer dubs him "more of a double threat than I would've expected. It seems you may be our first District Four intellectual, Jerrick."

         "Hardly," Jerrick lets out a bittersweet sigh.

         It was a good interview too, I think. I can't stop feeling impressed by their performances. I can't see what I did to deserve as good a pair of tributes as this.

         Shy tenses up as her girl takes the stage. This one has bright red hair tied back in a thick braid. The boy, Liam, is small and gentle-seeming, though he's not as young as he looks- he's seventeen, the same as Jerrick, and I'm not surprised that Jerrick liked him.

         The girl from 7 sings a song she's made up about clothes in the Capitol. 7's boy is well-muscled and talks about working as a lumberjack. He seems cheeky, which doesn't surprise me after the backstage interaction I caught him having with Kayta. …I wonder, if he has to choose, which of these two will Kayta invest his wedding present sponsorship funds in? I suppose he's lucky that neither of them seem to be an immediate wash the way his young and in love kids were last year.

         The boy from 9 resembles Luna but isn't related in any way that he knows of. The boy from 10 works with cows. The boy from 12 is a blond, which doesn't quite match with my mental image of people from 12, particularly being that they're such a small district they wouldn't have room for all the variety of types living and mixing in 1 and 2 and such.

         And out of them all, one will return. And, like everyone else in this row of seats, I want one of mine.

 

*****

 

         "I didn't know that stuff," Maria says to Jerrick when we're all back together in the car, hands folded in her lap, "About you and the fish farming. It would be something else if you could really do that sort of thing."

         "Well, they breed designer fish as pets for the Capitol in One, right? I've heard something like that."

         "Is that what you talk about after biology class with Gatito?"

         "Yeah. That and boat stuff."

         They fall silent. Maria stares at her hands, fingers clenched together tightly, then looks up at me. "Can we hold hands?"

         "Oh, sure," I agree. Why wouldn't I? I am sitting between them, Maria on my right and Jerrick on my left. I hold onto both of them. Jerrick closes his eyes.

         "P-please don't say anything…unwarranted," Apple asks me in a tight voice, nervously remembering my religious recitation last year for Shaya and Salvador.

         "Shh," Maria whispers to her gently, "Just let us have a moment of silence."

 

*****

 

         There is good news in the form of many backed up calls from potential sponsors when we return to our quarters.

         Aulie has a fancy new comm device this year and we lay on the floor and look up picture of designer fish for over an hour. Maria brings up when Jack took me to the aquarium.

 

         Jerrick waits until Maria has turned in to tell me that he made up an impromptu sort of will back home the night before the reaping. "It's in my room, slipped in the front of a notebook. I mean, most of my stuff I'm leaving to my brother, and I'll let my family deal with it, but there's some fish stuff I figured I should give to Gatito and a skimboard I want Zeno to have…"

         "It's the same kind of stuff you're going to hand down if you win and can buy all sorts of fancy new things, right?" I test.

         "Hmm…yeah. Unless it's just me and Maria. There's no way I could kill someone I've known practically forever. …But I didn't tell her that. No point. How could it come down to that anyway…"

         "Thank you, Jerrick," I hold his hands, "For everything. It continues to be an honor to know you."

         "Yeah," he laughs nervously, "And you're not half bad yourself."

 

         I assume both of them sleep more or less all right in the end. Neither comes and bothers me while I sit up feeling sick. Morning comes right around much too quickly.

 

         "Peter, Zeno, Elmo, Brendan, Nicholas," Maria says, hugging me in front of the hovercraft. It's like a whisper against the noise of the big machine behind us.

         "Right back at ya," I reply.

         Jerrick puts his arms around us both.

 

         "Good-bye," I wave as they're flown away. I wonder if they can see it.

 

*****

 

         I know how to put on my headphones. I understand what the various screens are for and know how the menus are arranged- there appear only to have been small internal tweaks since last year. I take my seat between Beto and Shy. Both of them offer me small greetings.

         Hector cracks his knuckles.

         I can hear Silk's voice, a bit indistinct through the barriers, asking Pal something- how soon I forget how new she is.

         Emmy comes in with a piece of some kind of red berry pie on a plate. Ferdinand follows after like some kind of bizarre butler with a napkin, a fork, and a glass of milk in his hands and helps her get set up. She kisses the side of his hand.

         "One minute to countdown," Beto announces, maybe for my benefit.

         Screens start lighting up.

         "Tributes secure and preparing for ascent," announces whoever was recorded saying this line.

         I can hear some gaspy breathing that I think is Silk's, from the high pitch and unfamiliarity.

         Peter, Zeno, Elmo, Brendan, Nicholas.

         I lean back and look toward Jack, but he doesn't glance my way like last time. "Psst, Jack," I call to him.

         He lifts his head. I give him a thumbs-up.

         He returns it.

 

         Longinus Bronze begins the count.

 

         At first glance, the arena brings to mind last year's. Not thickly forested like the jungle I encountered. There are lots of rocks. But it's not some flat stretch of land like in the Thirteenth Games. The Fourteenth has brought…I think it's called a mesa.

         It's not just meant to be that small of an area though. There are caves down into the rock, I think. There are ways of getting down. There's a river threading by below. There are some trees that look like evergreens.

         Maria is on the right side of my screen and Jerrick is on the left. Jerrick is just breathing. "Peter, Zeno, Elmo, Brendan, Nicholas," says Maria, heard only by me and herself. She takes a deep breath and says it again.

 

         The gong rings out.

 

         Maria is daring and bold, among the first to approach the Cornucopia. Jerrick hesitates in place until he confirms her movement before running out to join her. The scrawny girl from 6 overtakes Maria, but this doesn't bother her at all. Maria doesn't hesitate to grab at the large pack the 6 girl had chosen and pull it from her arms, knocking her to the dry, gritty ground.

         The boy from 7, with Maria and the 6 girl equally in his sights as he yanks some sort of long-bladed spear, stuck point-down in the packed soil, out of the ground, chooses the 6 girl as his target- the first death of the Fourteenth Hunger Games. Whether it was her more exposed position at that instant, her smaller size, the relative closeness of Maria's district partner and not hers, or something else, I don't know, but I'm shot through with a horrible feeling of gratitude. Thank you for not picking Maria. Let my girl get out of the Cornucopia this year.

         In something of a deja vu moment from last year's Games, Jerrick brains the 2 boy with the rucksack he's chosen from the Cornucopia spoils, and as he stumbles, dazed, Jerrick points this way out as clear to Maria and the two of them break through, actually weighed down, I realize, by their supplies. Two of the four largest packages there- between them there must be something useful- and Jerrick has a long fish fillet knife in his other hand- something of a strange and lovely bit of home. Maria lets out a excited whoop, which makes me smile despite my paranoia about what this yell might bring down upon her. It's a strong start.

         I think they're going to do pretty good.

 

         A certain distance out their run slows to a fast walk.

         Back at the Cornucopia, the bloodbath concludes with a bit of television-ready drama as the boy from 7 and the boy from 2, the only ones remaining there not dead or gasping out their final breaths, rather than fight it out at this moment, vow to be the last, meet again, and battle to the death then. "And I'll be sure and comfort your mother when I meet her on the Tour," the 2 boy declares, with a cocky grin and what I can only assume is a rude gesture back in 2 (Hector sighs loudly at this).

         "I'll do the same for your sister!" the 7 boy answers, though his expression is grimmer and he doesn't add any hand gestures to spice up his comment.

         "And here I thought all the men in Seven liked to do was handle wood," the 2 boy sniggers, running a hand through his shaggy blond locks.

         The boy from 7 rolls his eyes.

         They turn from one another cautiously and part ways.

         On my screen, Jerrick lets Maria take the fillet knife.

         Back on the showing of the main broadcast pictures of the female relatives in question are onscreen being commented on. The mother back in 7 appears ridiculously young to be the mother of an eighteen-year-old, with freckles and wavy auburn locks. The sister back in 2 is an attractively slim (as opposed to the more familiar underfed kind of thinness) blond teenager. In a weird sort of way, I'm impressed that these two boys paid enough attention to remember these family members of their opponents so well… But I hope it doesn't bring the two women any other unwanted attention.

         Kayta is saying what I think are local swearwords under his breath, but I don't know what they mean.

 

         There is only one district that has been knocked out of the running in the bloodbath: 8. I rise up on my knees on my chair to peer over at my colleagues in question. Silk is sitting in Pal's chair along with him. He is pale, but seems to be taking this double loss in stride. Silk is red-faced and sniffling, her arms around Pal's neck and her head leaned on his shoulder. Pal is speaking to her softer than I can casually hear and I don't mean to be that pushy and purposely eavesdrop.

         I slip back down into my normal posture. Jerrick and Maria are laughing nervously as Maria pantomimes various fish-slicing techniques.

         It's a very dry-looking arena. Lots of rocks and dust and not many plants. Water's going to be big survival issue here unless they can climb all that way down to the river or there's somewhere I'm not seeing it (a spring hidden between some rocks?). The prices for it are already starting higher than last year. I hope for a quick Games and not much dehydrated suffering on the part of the tributes. My pair, cracking into their supplies for the first time, share a can of pineapple slices in juice, trying not to spill a drop on the hard, reddish ground, though inevitably that's an impossible goal.

                  The rest of the first day goes by without any further death. It is growing dark by the time Jerrick and Maria reach the edge of the high rock formation the Cornucopia was situated on. I still don't know what this kind of thing is. I'm less sure by now about it being a mesa. At some point I'll hear the commentators say. Jerrick and Maria look cautiously over the side. For some distance it's rather shear, but further below are ledges and possibly caves. At the bottom of the sort of canyon, they see the river. "Do you think we should-?" Maria wonders, waving her hand in a loose sort of way to indicate down.

         "Maybe?" Jerrick furrows his brow. "Maybe in the morning. It would be better with more light."

         They retreat a ways to avoid resting too close to the edge of the cliff. They're sitting like this, pawing more carefully through their supplies, when the anthem starts up. The death count at this point is lower than last year's, but identical to that bloodbath. " _Mira_ ," Maria nudges Jerrick, who, having asked to take the first break, is already beginning to doze.

         I try, as usual, to peer around and judge the reactions of my fellow victors. Beto is flatly neutral at the loss of 3's boy, Sunny is fretfully twisting a bit of her hair as 6's girl is shown, Teejay, fairly lucid-eyed, rubs his hand over his long-sleeved shirt at the inside of his elbow, and Kayta gives a nod to the picture of 7's girl, but clearly has his eyes on the prize with his TV-friendly boy still out there. Pal and Silk are back in their own chairs, but holding hands, as their sad gazes take in both their tributes, reflecting on what they were like maybe, or committing them to memory. The coach for District 11 is the same one from last year. He seems just as unmoved by the loss of 11's boy as he did over the early loss of the girl in the year prior. The coach for District 12, a pink-skinned (and I mean a flowery pink-pink, not just ordinary pinkish skin) woman, smiles a sad, pinched little smile for 12's girl. She's better than the last one, I bet. Just for that look, I think she has to be.

         Pal and Silk make to leave and at first I think they will go silently, but at the last moment Pal turns and waves good night to us. "If you need anything, just ask," he addresses the room, though there's talking going on in some quarters and he doesn't project much, so I'm not sure everyone hears him, "I owe all of you for how you supported me last year…"

         "Mmm-hmm," Silk nods.

         "Oh, go get some rest," Hector waves them off, "I think you still have some of that sleep deficit to make up from last year, Pal!"

         I waggle my fingers in a wave not intended to mean anything more than friendship. They go, and, not long after, Teejay follows them. Onscreen, my tributes hunker down. Jerrick expresses some pleasure over the boy from 5 having made it out of the bloodbath alive before he goes back to sleep.

         Shy offers me some candy from back in 5, which I accept without concern for ruining my appetite. It would be stupid to tire myself out right away, but even with nothing happening, it's easy to stay up at this point, so I might stick around the mentoring room longer. "Did you meet Acedia?" Shy asks.

         "She is…?" I shake my head no.

         "Twelve's new coach. She's not bad."

         "Hmm." I'm not exactly in the most opportune spot to get a good look, but Acedia appears to be pretty engrossed in something on her touchscreen- probably sponsorship items. I won't interrupt her.

         Shy calls up her escort and orders a double portion of what she planned on eating for dinner so that I can eat it too. "Let's have our tributes ally together sometime," she says. "…I couldn't even get to that part this time, considering I couldn't even get the two I had to work together."

         "Well, a three-person alliance would work too…"

         "Luna probably had the same problem though," Shy goes on. It's true that her tributes don't appear to be together this year. "If they don't know one another beforehand, she'll probably have that trouble for a few years, what with that stunt her boy pulled last year."

         I didn't think of that, since it's not as if Luna wanted him to turn on his partner (…not with that many players still on the field at least), but Shy may have a point. "What about yours then?" I inquire. "Why didn't they want to work together?"

         She lets out an exasperated sort of laugh. "They're typical Fives in that sense. There's this thing we say about it- 'even when we're working together, we're each working alone.' Community spirit in Five is more about doing your own thing and not bugging people about theirs."

         Our meal arrives and I remember to let Aulie know that I'm eating with Shy. We keep company for a while. I turn in when she does, leaving Sunny, Luna, Gerik, and a bunch of spellers behind.

 

         I fall asleep fast, worn out by my lackluster sleep the night before, followed by the stress of the day.

         I dream that I'm in a boat all by myself and the only things I have to row with are my hands and my yellow cap. I can move, but not very fast. I can't see any land.

 

 

 

         I go down in the morning with somebreakfast in hand for Aulie, who happily accepts my offering. "They just got up," he informs me, "'Rick complained a little about a headache, but brushed it off as part of the whole sleeping on the uncomfortable ground sort of thing."

         "Maria?" I bite into a pancake.

         "Not an unhappy word out of that sweet girl."

 

         It's shaping up to be a quiet start to the second day. When Emmy gets back in, she's singing a little tune to herself she's so happy to have both of her tributes alive and more or less well (the girl took a nasty tumble wandering around in the night, but it wasn't any sort of serious damage).

         Maria and Jerrick find something tiny to eat out of their supplies. Maria is annoyed by an empty water bottle among the items she has.

         Kayta sends water to his remaining tribute. Pal brings Silk in, explaining that he thinks she should watch a while to gain mentoring experience in, which no one professes to mind, but doesn't stick around himself. "There's some, umm, business left over from last year that he says he has to take care of," is the vague answer she offers when I ask.

 

         Aulie leaves to take a nap.

 

         I have a lot more sponsor funds than I did at this point last year, but because of the higher prices, they're worth more or less the same. I'm trying to decide whether I should just get them started out with some water so they don't use up any other potentially hydrating food supplies too fast or if should send it fast to help them keep their edge.

         Jerrick takes a rope out his pack and tests it a bit, tugging it between his hands.

         "What do you think?" Maria asks him, picking at a knot in her hair. "Still thinking about going down?"

         "Well…" he cocks his head, looking toward the edge, "Don't you think they kind of seem to want us to? I mean, why'd they put it there if they didn't? Not just so some hopeless cases could jump."

         "You have a point." Her fingers slid out of her hair.

         "Even if we only went down to the first niche or cavern we found, it would still be an advantage as far as shelter and hiding out go. And if someone else tried to climb down after us, we'd have the jump on them. If the rope's left hanging, but we're waiting for someone to come, it could be a good trap."

         I suppose this means that neither of them is afraid of heights.

         This is a way for Jerrick to use the arena to his advantage the way he mentioned before, so in that sense, I suppose this stands to reason to be his strategy.

 

         They cautiously go about looking for a good spot to start a descent- somewhere where the land formations seem to be in their favor in that there seems to be something to go down to within reach of the rope- and where there's something sturdy-looking enough for the rope to be secured to.

         I hold out on sponsored gifts while they stick to their task.

         On the large screen I see that Emmy's girl is engaged in a similar tack of careful climbing.

         "I get a sick feeling just watching that," Hector says when he notices me looking. I smile at him.

 

         Jerrick, after some discussion with Maria, chooses between two spots he liked as the place where they're going to go down. He secures the rope with a series of trustworthy knots around a heavy pine branch sticking out a ways over the side of the rock face. I have no concerns regarding his knot-tying prowess.

         He goes over the side very slowly. Maria holds onto the top of his bag, hoping he won't be lost if something goes wrong.

         But the rope seems to be holding. He convinces her to let go of him. Jerrick makes his way down a bit further. Indeed, the…texture, should I say?- the face of the rock is pitted in a way that I think may have been chosen to facilitate climbing. There are lots of little dips for Jerrick to hook his toes into.

         "Well," he calls back up to Maria once he's found the tiniest of little ledges to more or less stand on, "Are you coming down or am I leaving you alone up there?"

         "…I'm coming," she tells him and does just what she says, making the descent down to the same minuscule ledge. When she gets there, they hold hands. One hand each on the rope, the other gripped by their friend.

         "Now where?" she asks, "I hope you've seen somewhere good we can reach since you're brought me down here."

         "There," Jerrick points, "See that. It's the mouth of some kind of cave. Or, well, how big does something have to be to be a cave? But it goes in and it's deeper than this spot's sticking out, so."

         "Once more to the breach?" she makes a funny face.

         "What does that mean?"

         "I don't know, but my dad says it."

        

         Again, Jerrick starts down first.

 

 

         The rope snaps.

 

         They fall. Jerrick only opens his mouth to gasp before his breath is snatched away. Maria screams as she teeters on the tiny ledge. Though her fingernails scrabble for a second against the packed earth, there's nothing she can do. She's off-balance and it's such a precarious spot to keep hold of. Jerrick's hands find no purchase as he moves through the air. There's nothing he can do. There's nothing substantial enough to hold onto. Just like that, both my tributes fall to their deaths.

         I stare dumbly. It's over in just one horrifying moment. There is nothing I can do.


	14. Part III, Chapter IV

         Various tributes glance up curiously at the sound of the near-double cannon fire. Someone out there might be very deadly.

         Someone indeed. The Gamemakers. Or luck.

         Jerrick's knots were not the problem. Indeed, I can see them holding the top third of the rope still.

         No other tribute cut at their lifeline. Nothing protruded from the side of the cliff significantly enough to suggest it might be worn away that way while they climbed. It was just a bad rope or something. Jerrick's testing wasn't thorough enough. Careful wasn't careful enough.

         I can't quite be sad yet. I'm too busy being dumbstruck.

         "What happened to Four's?" I hear Gerik asking someone. A testament to how fast it went.

         My first condolences arrive in tandem from Sunny and Silk: "I'm so sorry." A handful of others follow. While it's nice for anyone with tributes remaining because there are two less potential opponents for their kids to make it through, the accidental manner of their passing has got to strike at least Gerik and Hector as something disappointing. Both out of the bloodbath. Both volunteers. Volunteering for non-related tributes might be off the table in 4 for decades now. I came home, but Jerrick and Maria barely had the chance to do anything. Dead on the second day.

         I take off my headset and put it on the table. "I-" I declare, more for myself than for anyone around me (they have their own important business to stick to- what do they care?), "I'm going to get some lunch."

         "Soup of the Day's good in the cafeteria," the District 11 coach volunteers.

         "Thanks," I slink out.

         I order the soup and a side of oyster crackers. While I wait for them, I catch a recap of my tributes' - my students', friends'- deaths. The cold analytics of the replay are what break me. They were people. They have names. They were- they are- so much more than deaths eight and nine of the Fourteenth Hunger Games.

         I start to cry into my soup.

         "They don't put enough salt in this to start out, do they?" Jack intrudes with this wry remark. He sits down beside me and puts his arm around my shoulders. I lean in against him. "Hey," he says, "Hey, it'll be all right."

         "Liar," I counter, though I don't have much strength to throw behind it.

         "Oh, I didn't say it'll be perfect," Jack goes on, not sounding much put out by my complaint, "I didn't say it'd last forever. But it'll be better than this for a while."

         "That's not good, Jack," I turn to press my face against his shirt, "It's not enough."

         His arm is comfortingly solid against my back. At least we will always be in this together, I console myself. I would burn out alone. I makes me suppose that, in a way, each new victor adds to our strength. There are thirteen of us and then there will be fourteen. We come from different districts, we have our own varied ways and personalities, but, in a way, we are the only ones of our kind. Not Capitol, but not just District any longer.

         "Let's go," Jack whispers, "Let's get out of this place and forget for a while."

         "You have tributes," I remind him in an equally hushed voice. I don't see how he could forget. I don't see how he could not care. Someone is presumably watching them for the time being, but at least we're still in the center just a few rooms away. He shouldn't even be considering going off and leaving the place to spend time with me. I hope he doesn't think _I_ want him to do anything like that.

         I pull away. "You should get back to them. I'll be all right. I'm just going to finish eating and go lie down for a while."

         There's reluctance in his manner, but he ultimately does as I've pushed him to. "We'll talk later," I promise, "You can call me up later in the evening and I'll bring dinner in to you."

         While I'm away not watching for the rest of that day, the girl from 5 and the girl from 11 are killed, both by the same tribute and in the same fashion. The boy from 7 did it by throwing them over the side of one of the cliffs (using the arena to his advantage like Jerrick wanted to).

         I don't see Apple at all. Aulie tells me she started crying in a public part of the Games Center and went home after being chided by a junior Gamemaker for being in such bad form where other people could see her. That they were only district children after all. "She should've known better when it came to the location, but I don't blame her in the slightest for her reaction. They were good kids. There are lots and lots of good kids, but they're the price of the peace we've chosen. She could lose her job if she doesn't keep the right face on in public."

         Well, that explains that. "You'll keep your eye on her for me, won't you, Aulie? I mean, if Apple decides this job is too much for her, that's one thing- I could definitely understand that- but I don't want her to get fired."

         "For you, of course," he agrees.

         Jack calls me in the evening, wondering if he can come up to the fourth floor and see me. I remind him of my promise to bring dinner in to him and force myself to act cheerful as I take his order.

         "You have got some Games-damned luck, Mags," Hector greets me as I return with our meals in my hands, "I am so sorry. I keep watching that replay over and over, but short of not climbing at all, I just can't see what they could've done differently."

         "The bad luck's gotta go somewhere," I shrug. I appreciate his kindness, but what else can I say?

         Jack lets me sit with him at his station while we eat. I don't feel much like talking, so I pick at my food and watch his tributes as they move, separately, about the arena. Sincerity discovers a way downward that's almost like an abandoned staircase of rock, but is too afraid to follow it. Charlie doesn't seem to show any interest in trying to head down to the bottom of the arena either. Though Jack reiterates his interest in spending some time with me privately, I turn him down again. I have no desire to do anything that would separate him unnecessarily from his tributes. If he's going to take a break, he should spend it sleeping.

         I'm exhausted. I go to sleep early.

 

         In the night, Jack's girl follows my tributes in plunging to her death, but she does it by stepping off a ledge- no faulty equipment required. There's televised discussion of whether it's a suicide or an accident (when I get to down to Mentor Central, no one's talking about it). The Gamemakers can't stop arena suicides completely, but they don't like them. That's not the way the Games are meant to be played.

         "I'm sorry about your girl," I tell Jack. Watching the creepy night vision footage, I'm inclined to think she meant to do it.

         Perhaps that's why Jack doesn't seem too eaten up over it. No one's ever going to survive the Hunger Games without wanting to.

         I buzz about aimlessly between the mentors I'm on the best terms with, playing gofer along with the Avoxes, though when they pick up trays and take orders and such, they often disappear off into their own special back rooms and walkways through the Games complex where, as an outsider, I hesitate to follow. The one Pal likes, Brendan, is present today, though he looks to be on window-washing duty. I haven't seen my sort-of-friend the blond Avox woman yet on this entire visit to the Capitol. I'm not sure if any of her coworkers will understand who I'm talking about if I ask after her. I have no idea how many Avoxes are employed by the Games Center.

         Beto's girl and Shy's boy have both ventured down through different sections of the staircase-like rocks formations heading towards the bottom of the arena. "Okay, you know I want one of ours to win," Hector laughs, "But hear me out, all right? How exciting would it be if just the two of them made it to the bottom and fought out the final duel down there?"

         "Yeah, I could go for that," Shy laughs, "I think they're about fairly matched."

         Beto mutters something that probably isn't agreement, but it's not like out of the remaining tributes Shy's wouldn't be one of the better opponents for his girl. Half of the tributes in the Fourteenth Games are dead now and my resistance to feeling for each individual tribute weakens. This time Beto's girl is named Avi Brown. She has a green ribbon in her brown hair.

         I ask Beto if there's anything I can to give him a hand and he gives me his notebook and lets me read a set of numbers to his escort, or whatever Capitolite helps him out with his sponsorships. I have no idea what any of it means, but I'm happy that he'll let me help.

         There are no further fatalities until the early afternoon. Jack dips into his sponsor funds to send his remaining tribute a pair on binoculars. From the overhead map, we can all tell he's in a fairly hidden location at the moment, but it's right in the middle of the maneuvers of about half the other tributes, so he's going to have to be careful with where he goes from there.

         Jack doesn't send any message with the binoculars. If it were me, I probably would, despite their meaning seeming pretty self-evident. I appreciate the opportunity to have some kind of contact with my tributes, even if it has to be clipped and careful. I want them to remember the world beyond the arena. I want them to know that I'm out there, thinking of them. That someone else is on their side.

         But I think Jack is a very different sort of mentor than I am.

         The boy uses the binoculars and takes a look around.

         I think the message he takes away from what he sees is exactly the opposite of what Jack wants him to. He tries to surprise the boy from 7, but it doesn't wind up a surprise at all.

         Jack rubs his face with both hands. "Stupid," he says to himself, "So stupid."

         Kayta's boy is very pleased by the spoils of binoculars this kill nets him. He takes them up a dry, dead tree (I would be afraid to climb that tree- especially at his size and weight- it seems like it could just snap and fall to pieces) and surveys the arena as far as he can see.

         I come up behind Jack and put my hand on his shoulder.

         We stay like that a long time.

 

         Setting aside the possibility of flukes that always exists and that idea that these Games might end on the canyon floor as opposed to up on the rock formation, as the third day progresses, I think this is 2 or 7's game to lose. One or two of those tributes is headed toward breaking the previous kill record. Kayta, Hector, and Gerik all seem quite enthused to be caught up in this mini rivalry. I doubt there will be any hard feelings whichever way it goes- those are three tributes playing these Games with every bit of strength in them.

         "Come back to my place?" Jack asks me.

         Well, now that we're both clear of responsibilities to living tributes, I acquiesce. Jack talks quietly on the way about small things- aside from the Games, small things are the only things on his mind now.

         "I'm so tired," he says once back in his apartment.

         "Where would be the most comfortable place to sit down?" I try to facilitate taking the edge off the worst of this. Obviously, it pains Jack to lose his tributes the same as any of us, but the way he shows that pain isn't as transparent to me as that of many of my colleagues.

         "…bedroom," he mumbles, "If that doesn't bother you."

         "No…" I go along with him down the hall and through the door I have only ever seen closed.

         I find it to be a solemn-seeming room, despite the preponderance of warm colors in the decor. The bedspread stands out, a soft sort of yellow. Jack sits down heavily and the puffy fabric creases beneath him. Drained like this, he looks more or less his almost thirty years old rather than that feeling of 'just a bit older than me' I get from the ageless youthfulness of his excitement.

         "Maybe you want to be alone?" It seems like a reasonable thing to think.

         "Please," he holds out his hands, "Stay."

         I take them. I'll stay. I sit down beside him, never letting go of his hands as I do. I kiss his forehead, lips brushing against bits of auburn bangs.

         He returns with a kiss of his own to my lips.

         Hands disentangle to wrap around my back and I can't help but think, at this grip, that Jack is _strong_. The way he's holding me doesn't hurt, but there's a roughness around the edges that doesn't usually surface in our contact- that he must be normally restraining himself from employing. There are fingers clutching around the curve of my shoulder that have killed people.

         My own hands against his t-shirt are no better, even if they are weaker and smaller.

         I kiss him back.

         His fingers slip between the layers of my clothes- the outer off-white covering and the dark t-shirt below. They move along the hem of my shirt and I tremble at warmly electric impact of the touch of his skin to mine. We are right together like this, I think. There is so much wrong in this world and there's so little that I can do, but- But perhaps I can see Jack happy amidst it all. Perhaps I can swim with this tide and not run away from its rise out of fear.

 

         Jack moves away and folds his hands.

 

         I don't understand. I had expected him to say something, to ask something, but, instead, silence. "Jack?" I resist the urge to touch him.

         "I shouldn't," he shakes his head, "I would feel like I was taking advantage…"

         "Huh?"

         "Because your tributes died like that." He looks sad.

         "But your tributes died too," I insist. And today, while mine went the day before. I don't see why mine would make a greater difference than his. Because they died at the same time? Because I knew them better than he presumably knew his? …Or maybe because he's upset over his tributes and doesn't trust himself to judge my feelings properly in light of his own condition?

         He turns to fully face me and I feel his breath against my cheek we're still so close together. "I know," is all the acknowledgement he gives his fallen tributes.

         I put my arms around his neck and lean my head against his chest. He sets one hand on my back and drops his head, gently, backward onto the bed. He closes his eyes. He stays quiet.

         I maintain my silence as well. It seems to last a long time.

         I pull my hands free from the weight upon them and try not to lean against him too heavily as I realize he's fallen asleep.

         He's still, but there doesn't seem to be anything particularly peaceful about it. It's just Jack sleeping, turned slightly toward his side. I kiss his cheek.

         He twitches, but doesn't wake.

         Slowly, I rise up and off the bed, leaving Jack to his dreams, whatever they might be. The temperature in the room is pleasant, so it's not as if I think he will be cold, but I search around for a blanket to drape over him since it seems like the kind thing to do. There. That looks a bit better. And with a whispered, "Goodnight, Jack," I depart.

 

         "Oh, Mags," Apple meets me immediately upon my return to the Games complex, reaching into her purse, "Here's the photography for Maria's, ah-"

         "Her grandmother," I supply.

         "Yes. Grandmother," she agrees. "Well, Maria did look very pretty in lots of shots, so I picked two instead of just one. A picture of Jerrick too, poor boy."

         I feel slightly sick when I look at their cautiously smiling face.

         "…Mags," Apple starts again, also cautiously, "If you're not too tired from, ah, being out with Jack, would you feel like taking a walk with me?"

         She wants to talk, I think, but not within the Games Center. Somewhere where we're less conspicuous? No, where there are less interested ears. "Sure. Jack's the one who was worn out."

         "Men always seem to fall asleep after," Apple sighs, in a manner I think is intended as sympathetic. I don't speak up in contradiction of her assumption.

         Apple drives us out to the second ring of the city. I haven't really been in this area of the Capitol- everything related to the Games is in the center ring, the same as the homes of the president and Aulie and Jack. Things are colorful, but in a more low-key way. I watch multicolored buildings of two or three stories and sidewalks broken by exotic, but no so perfectly groomed, trees pass us by. Apple's car brings back memories of Beanpole. "…Is this your neighborhood, Apple?"

         "Yes. …Do you want to see where I live?" Apple turns down a side road, seemingly making up her mind already on her own.

         "Sure," I assent.

         Driving off in this new direction for a while, she finally slows in from of a three story mint green building. "…The second floor flat is mine. I was finally able to move out here into my own place once I secured this job as an escort. Before that I lived in the Fourth Tier, with my mother and sister." She doesn't really stop, but we move past the place very slowly. I can see something shining in one of her windows- like a windchime or prism or something. It seems like her. The green of the place and the shimmer in the window.

         "What's it mean?" I express my curiosity as we move onward. "The 'Fourth Tier?'"

         "The Third Ring of the Capitol is the largest." She doesn't look at me, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the road, "And so, for ease of explanation- where do you live, how respected is your family, such things- it's divided into Tiers. …and that's why I put in for District Four as my first choice when I was allowed to apply as an escort. Because the ocean looked pretty on television and I assumed you were all about my equivalents in the scheme of district things- not the top, but enough above the bottom."

         There's a tremor in her voice. When I look at her, Apple glances suddenly off to the far left. This must be an emotional thing for her to talk about. I wonder if we make eye contact if she's going to start crying.

         I don't push for it. I turn obviously to the side and look to the right out the window. "I didn't know any of that."

         "It…it would be better if you didn't go trying to tell everyone back home about it. You know how things here are about…appearances…"

         "I won't." I don't see the point. People should be able to realize on their own that one way or another not everyone in the Capitol is considered equal. People everywhere have trouble with that. And it's not like even the most hot-blooded malcontents back home could get any use out of it. I'm the only one from Four who goes to the Capitol (though I think the mayor has been once when he was formally invested?). I'm the only one from Four that the Capitol cares about.

         It does raise other thoughts in my mind though, like ripples on water. "I'm going to guess there are twelve or thirteen tiers?"

         "Twelve. And the Twelfth is full of debtors and the like."

         She pulls into a small lot where the street surface is made up of variegated green cement or whatever it is streets are made up of in the Capitol. Despite the varied hues here, the texture seems particularly smooth. "Here we are." She dabs at one eye with a handkerchief for a moment once we stop, but I don't poke at this. "Aspen Park. …because of the trees," she gestures toward some tall trees with white bark. "Let's walk here."

         Her heels make a muted clack as they hit the pavement.

         Apple walks without saying anything for the first few yards.

         "You're sad about Maria and Jerrick too, aren't you?" I'm not sure this is only about them, but I can be confident what happened to them isn't making it any better. I don't want to outright mention what Aulie told me about her crying over them in public.

         "Yes," she sighs, "And they remind me of Salvador when here I was thinking I had gotten over that… Mags," she stops and I stumble not to bump into her. "Where you come from, you believe something happens to people after they die, right?"

         "Err. Yes." I don't think that much is considered seditious.

         "Until I met people from the districts- well, your district, that is- I still barely know anyone from the others- I'd never met anyone I knew believed that sort of thing. But the longer I work as part of the Games, the more I think I understand why that would be a nice thing to believe."

         When she says things like that, I feel sorry for Apple. "Hmm," I respond. I'm not sure what to tell her.

         "Maria and Jerrick, Salvador, Simon, Beanpole, that Shaya girl. …they're living on somewhere else?" she tries.

         "Yeah. Somewhere better."

         "…that part I could guess," she shakes her head and starts walking again. "I imagine your father could tell me all about it?"

         "He'd tell you a lot of things if he thought he could." It's a funny thing to think- that Papa detoured from his priestly studies upon meeting my mother and now a Capitol woman wonders toward religion and considers him. "But, you know." Apple and I can get some privacy, seeing as we're together enough and it's natural enough. Papa and Apple are unlikely to have a single conversation they're sure they're having alone. "Someone in the Capitol might know too though," I shrug. "Or is forbidden to read about even within the framework of history? It's old, it was there before our district, it had to come from somewhere."

         "I'm not sure. …I suppose I'll try and do some reading and research on my own…"

         "Apple, you know," I broach an awkward subject of my own, "Jack and I- I haven't had sex with Jack."

         "Oh. I apologize for having assumed otherwise." We're a ways back from the street and the lot and the modest multicolored swing set and slide set up for the enjoyment of local children. "I know I was skeptical at first, but I'm sure it- if you do he'll treat you very well. He tries to be as light and easy with this relationship as anything else, but I can see that he cares for you very much."

         It's not a subject I'm good at talking about, but Apple's manner makes me smile. "If he doesn't, I'm guessing he'll have you to answer to?"

         "Well, I don't imagine your father would ever find the proper opportunity." She reaches out and takes my hand, tugging me along so we're walking side by side now instead of me following behind. "So, do you think you will? If I think he's sincere about you, you know that I know about you. I knew right away. That you're so sincere is part of why I thought I should discourage you."

         "I have mixed feelings. Not about Jack, but… I don't know. I do love Jack. I'm sure of that, but I'm together with him about four weeks total, on and off, out of the whole year. Because we're from different districts this is it. This is probably too much as it is."

         "You've managed this far. I suppose I can't properly imagine it, but would it hurt to try?"

         "We're going to have to work side by side for the foreseeable future, Apple." I can't help but think she hasn't considered that part in depth. "I want us to stay friends."

         "Hmm…I am friends with only one old boyfriend- and I've had many… Oh, well, Jack does live in the Capitol often. You don't think you could live here with him?"

         "I'd be leaving Papa," I start, but I don't have to mention anyone or anything further because Apple can understand that.

         "It's not as if it would be permanent," she goes on, "But. But, I see."

         "So, it's complicated."

 

         We stay out and eat together in a small cafe in the Second Ring where I'm recognized, but in a sort of polite, "Hey, look, I know who she is," way rather than any paparazzi fury. The woman running the place asks to take a picture of Apple and me with our dinner, then hurries to print out a copy and have us sign it.

 

         There are only two faces for the night's anthem show- the two tributes from District 1. Three days and the field has been halved. These may either be shaping up to be a very short Games or a very long endgame.

         The spread of deaths at this point has been such that even with half the tributes gone, only three districts are out- 1, 4 and 8. While Kayta and the 2s have strong odds, Beto keeps on running numbers for his girl, Ferdinand is scarcely off the phones on Emmy's behalf (that both of 10's tributes are alive at this point isn't a first, I think, but since Emmy, they've usually been an early blow-out), and even the victor-less District 12 coach is getting her chance to do something.

 

         The following day I get back to watching the Games from first thing in the morning, though I can't say my heart is exactly in it. The boy from 12 is headed down through the cavernous pathways in the rock formation. The girl from 9 did pretty much the same thing as Maria and Jerrick, but whether it was all that more successful of a job is questionable at this point because the hole in the stone she'd hiding out in only goes about three yards back- it doesn't connect up with any of the more complex paths leading down- so she's stuck unless she's willing to tackle the cliff face again.

         Jack shows up about twenty minutes later. "Hey, pretty boy," Gerik grabs him immediately, "The three of us need to talk," and directs him over to Hector's side.

         I can't stop myself from looking away from the Games activity to watch them, but it's not as if I can go over and insert myself into the conversation as much as I wonder what they're talking about. I get fidgety forcing myself not to try and listen in.

         Kayta gets up from his station with his headset still on to walk around the room and stretch a bit. "You look bored," he addresses me.

         "I thought maybe Silk and Pal would be here," I admit.

         "Go figure," he shrugs, "But, hey, I brought a game you could play." He goes back to his mentoring station and digs a zippered pouch of his bag. "Hey, Jack," he interrupts the three-man Inner District conversation that seems to be more or less dissolving on its own anyway, "Catch!" He makes a little preliminary jerk with his wrist, the sort of tossing feint I've seen boys back home make to tease dogs, to be sure that Jack sees what's about to come his way, before he actually tosses the item over.

         Jack doesn't have any trouble catching it. He looks quizzical. "What's in the bag?"

         "A real simple game from back home." Kayta pauses to make some observations about his boy, but there isn't much to note. He's sitting up in that tree again looking around with the binoculars. He's been sharpening his spear on a rock. I sort of wonder if he's hoping to see his impromptu rival from 2 or if it's "too early" yet. Save that showdown for the very last (well, the Gamemakers would like that).

         "Pick-up sticks," Kayta comes over and explains the game, which is pretty well described by its name and boasts exceedingly simple rules. "…and go!" he cheers us on to play.

         "What does the winner get?" I tease.

         "Didn't think that part out yet," Kayta heads back to his seat to focus his attention back on his work. "Get back to me about it when someone's won."

         Jack stretches his hands. "I'm going to blow you out of the water," he grins.

         It turns out my touch is clumsy today and I keep bumping the sticks. Jack fulfills his promise. When he reports to Kayta about having won though, Kayta tells him he doesn't deserve any prizes. Jack protests a bit about the unfairness ("So you would've come up with something for Mags?" "Of course, I would've."), so Kayta nags some of the other victors for their opinions on the situation.

         Everyone either agrees with Kayta or declines to comment (though I think Shy and Hector agree with Kayta just because they think that's the funnier option). Luna bothers to say that she thinks Jack is the worst mentor of everyone, including the not particularly dedicated District 11 coach and, "this one here," she points her thumb over at Emmy.

         Jack's frown is pronounced.

         I think this jab is too much for Kayta- he didn't expect anyone to take the teasing that far. "…Mags should give you something because she's the loser," Kayta corrects his earlier judgement.

         Jack sits down heavily beside me. He doesn't say anything, just looks up at the main screen and lets his eyes follow the movements of Liam from 5 as he reaches the canyon floor and heads toward the river.

         "Hey, Jack," I say eventually. It's enough to get his attention. I kiss his cheek.

         "Would you like to go somewhere?" he inquires.

         "…well, I'm not sure I really want to go out, but we don't have to do our watching here."

 

         We go up to the fourth floor. "Oh, hello, Jack," Aulie looks up from his new comm device. "Mags, the last of the hats are here," he points out an open box sitting next to the couch.

         "Thank you."

         "They were popular enough then?" Jack asks.

         "It was a wonderful idea," Aulie answers. He gets up from the table. "You two take it easy."

         "I'll finish the autographs," I tell Aulie, though I'm sure he expects me to get to it anyway. "Have a nice afternoon."

        

         Jack spends several innocuous hours with me before he's scheduled to tape one of his pieces down at the studio. The process of his cheering up goes on gradually (obviously being called a bad mentor to his face bothers him), but by the time he leaves I doubt anyone would know that any such disturbance had marred his day.

        

 

         The fifth day dawns. The 2s are in masterful seek and destroy mode as they roam the caverns on the side of the cliff. The boy from 9 tries to run away from them, but he's too slow.

         When they head down deeper, the 2 girl notices some weak spots in the rocks and they decide to engage in a bit of careful mining sort of work (Hector seems impressed that such skills would ever end up being of use in the Games). They bust through the wall the blocks the girl from 9 with the rest of the arena. Like that, they wipe out the 9s. Luna storms off without a word to any of us. The 2 girl is hurt pretty badly in the fight though. Her partner helps her to find a well-hidden place to stay and they split their supplies. "I'll come back for you," the boy says.

         "I'm a Two," the girl shakes her head, "I can take care of myself. And if I can't, that should be on me, not you."

         He thinks on this a moment, then they shake hands and part. "Goodbye, Leda."

         "Damn, I hate it when it works out like that," Hector rubs his temples. Assuming the rest of the tributes don't manage to kill one another, leaving only Leda living, she has pretty much conceded the Games to Inro.

         In the live commentary, Hector takes some flack from Mr. Bronze for sending Leda some painkillers and antiseptic solution and when Danae- I think she's just part of the Games programing team? I can't even remember where I learned her name- comes down to take him aside and get a clip about it, I can overhear him from the tiny filming booth they've added off to the side for this kind of thing saying some rather fierce words about Leda being his tribute and still being alive and how once he's received the sponsor funds he can do with them whatever he wants.

         When Hector steps back out of filming booth, someone claps for him. Hector is taken aback. Pal and Silk, sitting beside me, join in the applause and I follow their lead. Gerik laughs and begins clapping too. Jack and Sunny stand and follow suit.

         "O-oh," Danae hurries to turn her small camera back on and capture some of this.

         "Who clapped first?" Hector wonders.

         "Kayta," Sunny reveals him.

         "Shoot, brother!" Hector stands at the District 2 mentor station and leans against the partition, looking over at Kayta, "You know you are in my good book forever, right?"

         Kayta rises from his seat to see Hector eye-to-eye. He holds out his hand. "We're all transplants to the same forest." He winks and Sunny starts laughing.

         Everyone swerves suddenly back to attention at the sound of a cannon and the reveal for one possible reason for Beto's lack of either participation in or response to our show of mutual support. The District 3 girl has just killed the District 12 boy. "Oh, no," Acedia, the District 12 coach, gasps. Danae, happily taking in all this drama moves around to the other side of mentoring stations and captures Acedia on camera wringing her hands. Her abnormally blue eyes well up with tears almost immediately and her mascara begins to run down her pink skin.

         Beto is saying something to himself that I want to interpret as, "Well done." Avi, his girl this year is fifteen or so, with a pinched face and heavy-lidded eyes. If she comes out of this alive, I imagine he will treat her with whatever his version would be of all the love and care that Pal showers on Silk.

         …If Inro comes home to 2 or Reinhold to 7, there will surely be many who love them, but as far as their mentors are concerned, they will be more a partner or a buddy than the boon that girl would be to Beto (or the miracle 11's girl would be to her district).

 

         That's it, the final eight. 

 

         Over lunch, Apple invites me to a movie and manages to get through my mixed feelings to convince me to actually go. Part of it, I think, is that she wants me to see that she's gotten herself together. The movie she's picked is a modern comedy. My favorite part is a cameo by Sophie Varen, playing herself, where she interviews the hapless hero (a Capitol citizen working in District 1) on local television. It's a funny touch.

         Afterward Apple takes me clothes shopping, although I just look rather than buying anything. We manage to barely mention the Games at all, though they're certainly close to the thoughts of many of the people who recognize me. A few clerks tell me that they're very sorry. It's just one of those unfortunate things. One asks me some things about Jack that I don't have answers for.

         It hasn't been our year, either District 1 or District 4. There are two districts left with both of theirs still in it- 2 and 10. For 10, it feels like a fluke (not that I would begrudge anyone a fluke), for 2, it seems…well-orchestrated. 1's girl may be basically out of it, but the way she handled herself anyway… They're both sharp kids and great fighters. There is something going on in 1- a dangerous something as far as the way the Games are played is concerned. It's training of some sort, in whatever way Gerik and Hector have managed to finagle it into legality. The four of us had talked about the idea before, but I don't know how implementation has worked out. Things are kind of on the fence in 4 (or should I say with me?).

         There's a possibility for trouble on both sides. …I'm a bit afraid as it is to come out and ask…well, who? Whoever I should ask about it in the Capitol. And, on the other hand, just because the Capitol will give it the okay doesn't necessarily mean that the mayor and other people of note will agree to it. They may not want to feel complicit.

         I don't know what, if anything, they're doing in 1. For all that I like Jack, for all that we talk, he rarely tells me about any of the goings-on in his home district. I would listen if he wanted to tell me. It's hard to decide whether there's some kind of secrecy cloaking it or if he just finds it so mundane that it's not worth mentioning or if it has something to do with being unhappy when he's there. I know there was a period back after his Victory Tour when he wouldn't go back to 1 at all. I learn a tiny bit more about Jack all the time, but I still don't know the details.

 

         Apple thinks I'm getting too moody (I suppose I am thinking about Games-related things more than what we're doing now) and drags me off to a shop that sells just swimsuits. "You have to help me pick one out!" she insists, "Or I won't let you go back to the Games Center!"

         I am swayed by this ridiculous threat.

         I don't think I've ever spent so much time choosing a garment in my life, but I am having fun with Apple. We settle on a polka-dotted one piece. It…seems to…flatter her shape? I don't know. It looks nice and she says something like that about the cut.

         Then she insists that I get one and we bicker about it a bit in good fun and I end up back in my quarters at the Center with a green, not particularly fancy two-piece.

 

         6 lost their boy while we were out. I feel sort of guilty I didn't see, but I can't be responsible for all of them…

         The following day family interviews air. A final seven rather than a final eight.

         "I got my hopes up," Sunny sighs to me, "Again. I shouldn't have. I should know better."

         "There's always a tradeoff," Pal says sympathetically.

 

         The girl from 3 and the boy from 5, Avi and Liam, run into one another on the rocks by the river, but after a moment of tension, neither attacks the other. "Do you want to talk?" Liam asks, "I really want to talk to another person. I guess it hasn't even been a week, but I feel like I'm going to go crazy."

         "I'll talk," Avi agrees.

         They crouch on the rocks, shielded from any others who might pass by the noise of the river, and talk for maybe a full fifteen minutes, not that all of it is going to be aired as part of the main program.

         "Sorry we can't be friends," Avi finally gets up and walks away.

         "See you, Avi. …Or better not," Liam agrees.

         Silk sighs and leans her head on Pal's shoulder, "That's so sweet."

 

         Beto and Shy both seemed pleased by this interaction too. For multiple reasons I think- it's a way of seeing that their tributes are still sane, but I can see that it's lighting up the sponsor lines as well.

 

         The boy from Seven, Reinhold, does a lot more looking around from his perch before deciding to go…on the hunt, I guess? "Let's clear the field," he says to himself, takes a big swig of water from the full canteen Kayta sent him (actually, his only sponsor gift from Kayta thus far, so that wedding gift money must be being carefully hoarded, because his spear is from the Cornucopia and most of his other supplies have been taken off the tributes he's killed).

         "Oh, he can't think he's going to finish it all today," Shy scoffs.

         "Not the whole field," Kayta counters, either understanding his tribute better than Shy does or just guessing, "The physical field he's on."

         From the overhead map on the main screen it's clear that only two tributes remain on top of the mesa at this point- Reinhold and Riata, the girl from 10.

         "Call them!" Emmy holds the phone out to Ferdinand, "Call buy a weapon!"

         "I don't believe anyone but you is authorized to make a purchase while you're clocked in, dear," Ferdinand answers calmly, though he is dialing. "Yes, District Ten," he tells the operator or whomever, "This is Ferdinand L'Guard. She wants to buy a weapon. For the girl. Of course for the girl. …Can't even afford a penknife? Draw it from my account then!"

         "He's kind of mad, huh?" Sunny remarks, "I've never seen him mad."

         "No, not the penknife- a, uh, a bigger knife. A steak knife!" He recites a long account number. "How can it need authorization if I am paying for it myself- I am her designated speller!"

         "Yeah, nice effort, but good luck," Kayta mutters.

         I can't see all of Emmy from here, but she seems to be swaying fretfully in her seat.

         "Please approve it," Ferdinand holds the phone toward her.

         She doesn't take it. She leans her head in and listens as it stays in Ferdinand's hand. "Yes," she answers the person very coherently, "Yes, please."

         Riata Davis gets her steak knife, but is mightily disappointed that it isn't more water and candy, the same as the package Emmy scraped together for both her tributes on the second night. Then, as she thinks it over, she becomes nervous- her mentor has sent her a weapon. That means she's going to need it. She can barely hold the knife without trembling.

         It take the boy from 7 half an hour to find and catch her, but less than ten minutes to kill her.

         Emmy cries and babbles and shakes. Ferdinand holds her shoulders. "Emmy," he addresses her firmly, "Emmy, think of Zachary."

         But she can't calm down. I get up off the couch to give Ferdinand some room to settle her down between Silk and Sunny. Silk looks distinctly uncomfortable. Ferdinand gives Emmy his lacy, lilac handkerchief, pats her hair, and takes over at her station. Silk scoots further from Emmy, closer to Pal. Sunny, on the other hand, starts to comfort her, talking a soft, soothing voice.

         I can't imagine there's anyone here better for that than Sunny. She has a very calming presence. Sparrow may not have thought she was a good mentor, but Sparrow had a decent shot at winning those Games. If you're going to die, you could choose many worse people to have with you in your last days.

         Emmy grows quiet, curled up against Sunny.

         I decide to step out to get some air. I run into Jack headed in. He's carrying a pink cardboard box. "How's your sweet tooth? I brought some really fancy pastries- enough for everyone."

         "Emmy can have mine if she wants it. She lost her girl."

         "That's a shame." He looks down at his shoes.

 

 

         It seems like there's so much time during the Games if your tributes are out early. It's a strange change from last year.

         I visit a bookstore with Aulie. It's absolutely enormous, and, unlike at the library, I can look at any section I like. All the books that are for sale have cleared the censorship board as safe for general consumption. There are books that teach the basics of certain practical survival skills and self-defense (Aulie tells me there are people who get into these things as hobbies, just like anything else that could possibly interest a person). With all the things I know nothing about, they'll be a helpful aid to the club (assuming there will still be a club after this year's fiasco). For Faline, Papa, and myself, I err in favor of books that are fiction- stories.

         I feel a bit proud having Aulie see how naturally I know how to use my bankcard now compared to when he first had to explain it to me.

         There are tabloid magazines on a rack below the counter. My eye is drawn to Silk's picture. "Sweet Sixteen," it says. "No more need for babysitters," it goes on beneath, "We hope to be seeing more of you."

         If they think that Pal is holding her back from being a part of the wilder side of Capitol life- well, they aren't exactly wrong, but I sincerely doubt she would be doing any differently on her own. Silk strikes me as more or less an ordinary girl with conventional district tastes and morals.

         "Do you hear a lot of talk about her?" I ask for Aulie's insight into the matter.

         "Well, little girls aren't exactly my type, and I have my own favorite district to invest my time in, but it's true that her tour footage has been very popular. Actually, my friend Cal- he sponsored her- she and Pal sent him a unique thank you card."

         "Why did Cal sponsor Silk?"

         "Because he has a family fortune to burn and Pal got to him before I did," Aulie scoffs.

         "Hmm, I see." We leave the bookstore and come out onto the decorative lantern-hung street.

         Aulie takes me to eat at a small place that sells bowls of hot, spiced noodles that would seem sort of like something back home if they would only add some bits of fish in along with the vegetables slices floating in the soup. We talk about Maria and Jerrick for a while, along the lines of things that I could try and learn about with my 'fan club,' but I start to feel too frustrated about it, so I have to stop.

         I say my sniffling is caused by the heat of the soup, but we both know better than that.

         I don't want to be alone in my bedroom back to at the Games complex, so I sit up on the couch watching some crummy movie.

 

         Leda from 2 makes it through the sixth day, though she's really not looking that good. In the morning Hector sends her a package of crackers (not the standard Crispco type- these ones are bright orange and presumably of a different flavor) and a message that just reads: "Sorry."

 

         She makes it through the seventh day as well. Gerik pats Hector on the shoulder about it often.

         7's Reinhold traverses the entire top of the area, making sure he's cleared it out before heading down.

 

         The eighth day, Leda expires. I don't see it live. I am out at the butterfly garden with Pal and Silk because there's really no use in us spending all of our time hanging around the Games Center. Silk goes to buy a little saucer of the sugar water you can use to feed the butterflies and the man at the counter just gives it to her. She finds a spot she likes, sits down cross-legged, and balances the saucer on her knee. "Take my picture, please, if a lot of butterflies come," she insists to Pal.

         He reaches into the big, loose sleeve of his mousy brown outer garment and pulls out a camera, holding it up so she can see it, but remains standing with me some distance away.

         "Are people still…" I struggle to decide how to put it, "…Giving you a hard time about her?"

         "They think that 'big brother' is keeping her from coming out and having any fun. …Well, I don't think I even want her to know about the sort of things people in various quarters are hoping she'll do with them. They mostly keep it sort of veiled, but I'm not so naive as to misunderstand..."

         "That's creepy," I shudder.

         "I make sure and field all the messages from someone we don't know. They don't call directly, but they bother our escort about it and such." He sighs. "I'm holding out hope that when we have our new victor though, most of the attention will turn to him or her."

         "People do like their fads around here."

         "Paaaaal!" Silk calls to him, "Look! Look!" There are butterflies all up and down her arm and she grins wildly.

 

         I buy them lunch and Silk shows me a bunch of photographs on Pal's camera that mainly depict the inside of her new house in various stages as she and Pal worked to decorate it. She asks about what my home looks in return, but I'm not all that great and describing it, and, honestly, I haven't put in half the effort into making it so uniquely mine as Silk has.

         Out of all the things in her new house, what she's most enthused about is a dollhouse she's busy making and collecting tiny furniture for. There's a single little doll inside dressed in gray and white with black stockings and a scarf on her hair- she's a typical District 8 factory girl.

         "I make her other clothes too," Silk explains, "But I like this best. It's actually a doll that came from the Capitol, but my mother cut her hair and dressed her like this for me to make her a local girl."

         "The doll stuff is her talent," Pal adds.

         "Well," Silk shrugs.

         "But I like that I can help and we can do these things together."

         "I think we should make all the victors," she laughs, "Wouldn't everyone get a kick out of that?"

         "Jack would," I vouch for my only fellow victor I think I can predict a reaction for, "…Actually, if you told him about this idea he'd probably make suggestions of his own about how you should make everyone look- what they should be wearing and all."

         "Jack would have to be in his madras and a t-shirt," Silk decides on the spot. "…But I'd want to make you first, Pal. You can help me make all the tiny patches and embroidery that would make it look especially like you."

         She's sold on the idea. I have to say, I do look forward to seeing what she comes up with and what parts Pal puts in to help her.

 

 

         The ninth day, the Gamemakers rattle the arena with an earthquake (we know it's on purpose because the commentators say so), shaking debris about to fill up the majority of the caves and tunnels to keep any of the tributes from heading back up now that all of them are on the canyon floor. Zachary, the boy from 10, is killed by a falling rock. I see all of this from a big screen on one of the streets while out taking a walk.

         A teenage girl approaches and asks if I'm all right because apparently I look so pale at seeing him crushed. Well, I'm not all right, but being kind and asking is really all I think she can do about it. I suppose I'm glad that I wasn't up with the other mentors for this. I imagine Emmy is having a rough time of it.

         This death brings us down to a final four. One girl, 3's Avi, and three boys, 2's Inro, 5's Liam, and 7's Reinhold.

         When my thoughts return to myself, rather than what I'm seeing onscreen, I realize the girl never left me. "Oh, it's really nice of you, but you don't need to stay with me," I say.

         "Just making sure," she smiles at me, "And, um, nice to meet you, Mags."

         I must give her a quizzical look, trying to decide whether this isn't just some random teenage girl, but someone I've met before. "I'm Julia Crane. My dad is one of the Gamemakers."

         "Oh," I reply stupidly, "Oh, I see."

         She walks me back to the center and I acquiesce to an awkward request to take a picture with me. Aulie just around the corner once I come inside- sort of like he was trying to wait out of sight? "Were you looking for me?" I wonder.

         "Yes. But casually. I mean, it's not because of any particular business you have to do."

         "And-?"

         "That's Crane's daughter… No, don't be concerned, there's nothing you need to worry about over her. It's just, I can't stand the son, Seneca Junior, and I keep finding excuses not to go to his horrid parties, so the less the Cranes are reminded of me, the better, I think."

         "Horrid parties?" I venture a small smile. I'm not quite sure what that would entail.

         "You honestly would be better off not knowing, dear," Aulie puts his arm around my shoulders.

         I am not sure I agree that I would be better off, but I decide not to ask. I know of enough horrible things and circumstances that I can't change. This isn't one I need to add to my list.

 

 

         On the tenth day, as I idly watch the Games from the couch on the fourth floor, the river starts to flow over its banks- a sure sign to me that they mean to encourage the last four tributes back toward one another.

         I figure I should go down and watch in the mentoring room, to provide moral support for my comrades who are still in this, if nothing else. I pack up one of the new books I bought, a notepad, and some bottled drinks I could share and head down in the elevator.

         There's not far to travel at that point, but I find myself delayed upon seeing the pretty blond Avox from years past. "Hey!" I approach her, "I was wondering about you. I'm glad you're…Okay." Well, as best as I can tell.

         She seems surprised at first, but composes herself to smile at me and give a small nod.

         "I…" She's carrying a bucket and a mop. "I suppose I shouldn't hold you up. Please, uh, take care of yourself."

         "Columbine, have you-" Jack stops when he sees me.

         The woman- Columbine?- freezes awkwardly between us, clutching at her tools.

         "Sorry," Jack addresses her, "Sorry, never mind. You just go and take care of it."

         "…Good-bye…Columbine," I lean around Jack to wave, even though I suppose it's a bit silly.

         "Emmy…uh, Ferdinand…" Jack tries to decide what it is he's trying to explain or how to tell it or where to start, "Ferdinand visited the health center and tried to pick up a stronger medication for Emmy, but it turned out to be too hard on her stomach."

         That part makes sense then. "…Yeah, throwing up is the worst," I agree, frowning. I didn't know that Emmy regularly took any sort of medication, but maybe that makes sense.

         Then we're just standing there in the hall looking at one another. He doesn't offer any information about Columbine- like Pal and Brendan, maybe he has just communicated with some of the Avoxes and happens to know her name.

         Finally, I decide to tell him what I was up to. "I'm just going into the mentor room. I get the feeling they're heading toward wrapping this up."

         "Oh. …I was thinking of asking if you'd like to go out and do something with me instead." Jack hooks his thumbs into his pockets and looks down at me, keeping his expression more or less neutral, but…

         I think we're at something of an impasse. "I figure I should be watching."

         "You're not obligated," Jack says, "If there's anyone they aren't going to go overboard with forcing to see required viewing, it's us. We all know what the Games are like; we all know what the Capitol's crucible has forged us into."

         "I _feel_ obligated," I reply. I'm only being honest. "Personally. Morally."

         Jack considers this and then poses a follow-up question: "To see all of it? Or to see the conclusion?"

         I don't watch _all_ of it. I can't say any of us keep our eyes on every minute in real time once our district is out. "The end, I suppose. To see how things turn out."

         "I'll get someone to send me a message then. By phone, the moment that the Games come down to the last two tributes."

         I hold my ground a few moments- I don't know, if just seems the right thing to do not to give in immediately. "…Okay."

         We take what seems like a very long walk around the interior edges of the Games complex before picking up some lunch on the way to his apartment.

         To get away from the inescapable Games footage and such, we go up and eat while sitting on his roof. Jack sings me a song about working in a diamond mine, "Although all the diamonds in One are entirely synthetic," he informs me. It's interesting to hear him actually talk about something regarding his home district.

         He tries to teach me how to play some kind of charades-esque game, but I can't quite grasp the rules. "Is this a game from One?" I inquire.

         "No, it's from the Capitol."

         "That explains why it's so unnecessarily complicated then," I sigh, then move on to something else. "…You know, I know I talk about Four a lot, maybe more than I should, but you barely say a word about One. It makes me get curious about it. …I've watched Sophie on TV a bunch of times now, probably just because of the way you don't bring it up."

         "…Would you miss the ocean?" Jack asks. I don't understand why and something about that makes me uncomfortable.

         "I've never been away from it," I counter, "Not long enough for it to make a difference at least." But I think I know the answer to his question anyway. "But I'm sure it would be hard for me. It'd be hard for anyone in Four, really. We're used to the ocean."

         "Hmm," he nods, "I see."

         "You know," it occurs to me, "I saw a map that showed One borders the ocean too, Jack. …But you've only seen it when you visited Four?"

         "Oh." He makes a sort of snorting noise. "That map? Maybe the Capitol technically considers that area part of our district what with the way they like to claim absolutely everything on the continent as theirs, but it's certainly not within the fence. The closest you can get to the western coast of Panem is blocked by a wall. …But even if you went to the westernmost fence and it was just a fence, you're still way too far to see the ocean from there."

         Now it's my turn. "Oh." To be poised on the coast but never even see the sea. To my ears, that's a truly despicable thing. The more I learn about District 1, the sadder and sadder a place it seems to me. The more I can look into Jack's eyes and identify that longing within him to go somewhere far away.

         He goes to the Capitol, but is that really any better?

         There's nothing I can do for him. There's nowhere I can take him away to. Jack has his place and I have mine. We live in worlds that only overlap.

         The wind picks up. Though Jack says it's entirely safe up here anyway, I get nervous, so we head back inside.

         Jack thinks of an easier game for me to learn. One where you try to build the most towering structure you can out of little square paper cards. It is easy to understand. It's much harder to actually do any good at.

         This, it turns out, is a game from 1.

         I finally start to get the hang of it when something lights up in the pocket of Jack's outer layer. It takes a second for me to realize it's his phone.

         Jack cracks a wry smile at the message on the screen, then turns the phone around so I can read what he's been sent: "This is it so stoked go D2!" It purportedly came from Gerik, but even I think the message was more likely sent by Hector (using Gerik's phone, I suppose). There's no way Gerik sends even a casual message like that.

         We leave the kitchen, where we were playing the card stacking game, making use of what Jack considers the best surface to play it on- his kitchen counter- out of a combination of its height and flat surface and forget about our two towers- Jack's medium-sized and steady, mine growing tall, but teetering.

         The television is on already, automatically turned to the finale of the Fourteenth Games, inevitable required viewing (almost live- with only a slight tape delay). I have been fortunate enough to miss the deaths of 5's Liam O'Rize and 3's Avi Brown. Neither of them killed the other, apparently. Inro from 2, grimly spattered with blood, finished them both.

         Inro is the more skilled fighter, but Reinhold, with the spear that's he's wrapped up with some kind of heavy tape Kayta sent him to reinforce it and give him a better grip, perhaps, has greater reach. Reinhold jabs at Inro with the spear and then pulls back.

         "…are they going to want you to comment on this?" I ask Jack.

         "Probably. But it's not like I do the live broadcast anyway most of the time."

         I squeeze Jack's arm so hard as I watch that he finally has to ask me to stop. My nails have left little red half-moon shapes all between his sleeve and his elbow. "S-sorry," I frown.

         "I just wanted to bear it, but…" Jack responds with an awkward smile.

         Onscreen, the pain and injury only escalate.

 

         It's a long fight.

 

         We could've left to return to the Games complex when we received the initial message and made it back with time to see the ultimate conclusion. I think Mr. Bronze, adding commentary with Mr. Zimmer as each bloody attack and counterattack plays out, is practically about to give himself an aneurysm out of excitement. This is the sort of finale he likes, but so many of us have denied him.

         Reinhold falls to his knees, supporting himself on the spear.

         Inro falls forward as well. Face first.

         "Pinesteeth!" Reinhold spits out blood.

 

         The call it 'the death by a thousand cuts.' That's how Reinhold Meyer defeats his final opponent to come out of the Fourteenth Hunger Games.

 

         "Thank you," Kayta gushes in his first interview as mentor to a winner, "Thank you! I want to thank everyone who gave us their support this year, not only for myself, but on behalf of my wife and all of District Seven!"

         "So, are you never going to ask us for anything again?" the lady reporter laughs.

         "No," Kayta is cocky as ever, "I'm going to ask for the exact same thing again next year. …A guy can dream, can't he?"

 

*****

 

         Reinhold needs a transfusion, antibiotics, a broken bone in his hand set, and time for broken ribs to heal and bruises, particularly on his face, to fade. Yet a photograph Kayta takes and sneaks out to the press himself shows Reinhold looking fairly pleased with himself. He's making a victory sort of gesture from back home, Kayta explains, pointing out Reinhold's less appreciably injured hand.

 

 

         I go out and have a few drinks with Hector and Gerik. They're both reasonably measured in their disappointments regarding Leda and Inro. "The three of us lost a whole batch of young heroes this year, huh?" Hector puts it.

         "I'm sorry we weren't able to get our four tributes to work together," I reply. …Not that the 2s really needed Jerrick and Maria, but it could have changed how things ended at least for all of them.

         "I'm sure if you have volunteers and we have volunteers we'll work it out sometime," Gerik rubs his chin, "I don't think you're about to stop being my first choice to work with anytime soon."

         "Ours knew, you know," Hector speaks in a low tone, trying not to attract any unnecessary attention as he gives me a bit more information, "They hadn't learned all the things the committees have been saying a tribute should learn. But what they had was still better than what just any kid plucked out of the district would've had. It's a gift, I suppose, to the tributes who will come after."

         "…I don't think Jerrick and Maria were thinking anything as involved as that."

         "Someone has to teach it to them. Few kids would think that way on their own," Gerik counters. He looks at me and his gray eyes ask, "Do you know what I mean?"

         More or less, I think I know. District 2, the land of the stoic, the disciplined, the bold. "Yeah," I say, though my serious expression runs counter to my casual response.

         He seems to accept this response. He moves onto another topic. "Hey, I bet you didn't know that Hector's got a girlfriend."

         "I didn't say it was okay for you to tell about that!" Hector counters.

         "Her name's Lilac. He met her in the local bakery where she likes to admire the fancy cakes she can't afford and then he bought her one. Don't know if I'd call that smooth, but it worked."

         "Congratulations, Hector! I hope things work out well for you."

         "Erm, yeah," he wrinkles his nose and turns kind of red.

         "She's the first real girlfriend he's had the whole time I've known him," Gerik goes on, "She's got these long, blond curls. She's like, eighteen or so? She's a clerk for one of the mining companies."

         "Shut up, Gerik. Get your own girlfriend if you wanna blab," Hector rolls his eyes, but the flush won't stop climbing up over his cheeks and onto his ears.

 

 

         Everyone is just sort of waiting for Reinhold to be in good enough shape to be crowned. I'm looking forward to going home, honestly.

 

         I have a dream about being on a sinking fishing vessel- not one of the really big ones, something like a bizarro version of Papa's- Jerrick and Maria are there with me. For some reason, though they're not trapped, they have no choice but to go down with the ship. They can't seem to swim and though I try to grab them and pull them along with me, neither of them float like people. They're heavy and sink like stones.

        

         Columbine is cleaning on our floor that morning. I offer to help her out, since it's not like I have anything in particular to do, but she shakes her head and turns down my offer.

 

         The day of Reinhold's victory celebrations finally comes. I pin the star-spangled veil over my hair, the same as I wore last year for Silk's party, when it was already old news, but I wear a different dress. Jack picks me up and brings me along with him. He isn't part of the show this year. We sit together in the audience. He leans his arm on the back of my seat, barely touching me, but around my shoulders. Waiting for the event to begin in earnest, people who come by us keep teasing him about it.

         "Get a room, Jack!" jokes a woman, who he informs me is the current stylist for District 1. "I mean, my! So romantic this one!"

         "…actually," I speak up, "It's not Jack. It's me. …I'm shy."

         "Oh!" she seems (pleasantly?) surprised to hear me address her, "Well, isn't that sweet! You know, Jack talks about you almost every time I see him, I think. Try not to let your reservations get in the way of enjoying him while you have him."

         Mr. Zimmer comes out and gets the audience focused before introducing Reinhold, who comes out waving. Kayta follows behind. Reinhold and Kayta bicker a bit and I don't know Reinhold, so I can't say, but on Kayta's part, it doesn't seem like playacting. I think Mr. Zimmer just appreciates it as a good act.

         Mr. Bronze, on the other hand, just wants to get on to the bloody show. And, boy, is this recap violent, especially compared to last year's. It is the Inro versus Reinhold show as they established at the Cornucopia, but the editing works up to it right from the beginning with the reapings. Inro and Reinhold meet, part, and kill their way back to their final duel.

         As Maria and Jerrick don't figure into this narrative at all, they receive only the briefest of mentions (every death is always counted). The same goes for Jack's female tribute. The boy, Charlie, gets just as little backstory, but more screen time since Reinhold killed him.

         Reinhold watches everything patiently.

         When I squirm, Jack squeezes my shoulder.

         The crown the president places on Reinhold's head- Reinhold has to lower his head a bit to accept it- is a mixture of rose gold and the more ordinary yellowish-kind. It's textured as if it were some gold sort of wood. It's a simple circlet that balances atop his head aside from these color and texture elements. I think it suits Reinhold very well, actually.

         Unlike Silk, no one gives Reinhold flowers. Kayta doesn't act protective toward him either. He just folds his arms and watches. I suppose Reinhold seems well equipped to manage whatever might be thrown at him at this point. He's over six feet tall. He broke the previous kill record. I have a feeling he'll hold it for a while.

 

         The party looks to be like all of these parties. It's colorful and crowded and loud. After some talking and congratulations given to Reinhold, the president gravitates back to last year's victor. "I think the president likes Silk more than you these days," I remark to Jack. "I also think he likes her more than Reinhold."

         "She's cuter than either me or Reinhold," Jack quips.

         "Hey, Jack," a woman speaks up from behind us. Her words are casual, but her Capitol accent gives them a slightly different character than they would have coming from someone like me. It's the president's daughter.

         "Hello, Star," he nods to her.

         "Can you leave your…friend for a minute to talk privately?" she asks Jack. She pretty much ignores me.

         "I'll meet up with you," he promises, "Don't leave without me."

         "Yeah, we'll see," I answer, because I don't plan on it, but I can't say I entirely trust him to find his way back to me within a reasonable amount of time. Too many people want a piece of him and he's usually too happy to give it to them.

         I find Sunny sitting at a table with Teejay. "You should try this lime pie," Sunny suggests, showing me what's left her own bright green piece.

         Teejay looks possibly more down than usual. When I ask about it he tells me that he's had some dreams about his sister lately, but that's all he wants to say about it. I offer to find him a piece of cake or something too, but he's not interested. "Stomach's a knot," he shrugs.

         On my way to find the recommended lime pie, I briefly notice or encounter Nar talking with the Victor Affairs liaison to 7 and looking smug as ever, Beto vehemently turning down invitations to join in a drinking contest (which the young Capitol fellows asking think will distract him, if not cheer him up, from the death of his girl in the final four), and Shy dancing up a storm. Then a yell attracts my attention and in the midst of one particular crowd, Luna smacks some bearded man full across the face and I see her fold up a fist to follow it up with, but a tall woman with strands of grain woven into her hair rushes in and hauls Luna away.

         "Do you know what that was about?" I ask Gerik, the first person I find in the area that I know.

         "No idea, but you know Luna- you or me stepping in is only going to make it worse."

         "…Does she like anyone out of all of us?" It's difficult, or maybe just sad, to think that there are fourteen victors now and Luna doesn't consider a single one of us her friend.

         "She…tolerates Beto." That's about the best he can come up with? "She and I have never had any major problems. I know you probably see a lot of the worst of it because you're…not one of her favorites and you tend to get pulled into the middle of the stuff between she and Shy, but… Eh." He sighs. "Have you introduced yourself to Reinhold? That's got to be a better use of your time."

         "I will, thank you, Gerik. I was just trying to find out if there were any of that lime pie left."

         He gives me some directions. I find the lime pie and while I'm eating I'm fussed over by strangers who express their sympathies in how quickly and "pointlessly" I lost my tributes and a young woman who turns out to be the "Actegarde" I autographed one of the caps to. Actegarde's pretty, brownish skin is set off by long turquoise hair. She wears a green gown that glows from underneath, lit by tiny orange bulbs on a string. She explains to me that she's taking a special etiquette program to try and increase her chances as being hired on as an escort the next time a position opens up. And then she brings up something I didn't expect anyone, let alone a Capitol citizen, to mention to me today. "I guess he died and that's the end of that story, but… Is there anything else you can tell me about Salvador?"

         Salvador. Yeah, the people in the Capitol got a lot of screen time to learn to like Salvador and there was plenty about him to like.

         "Well…" I say slowly, trying to sort out my thoughts, "They made him up very presentably after he died…and I brought his body home and there was a double funeral for him and Shaya in the cemetery."

         "And that's how that story ends," Actegarde nods, "If I want to be an escort, I guess I have to know about that part."

         "If you're going to be a good escort," I suggest. I'm sure there are lots of escorts who don't give much thought to that part. …It's probably easier on their psyches if they can tune out all the death, honestly. It brings me down. I can see Apple valiantly struggling against letting it bring her down.

         "Hey, you wanna meet Reinhold?" I suggest to her, trying to brighten the mood (she seems like a nice enough girl and I should hardly be giving an especially hard time to one of my fans/sponsors).

         Her whole face lights up. "You can do that?"

         "Yeah, sure, why not? I haven't met him yet. Come with me- just act natural." I hold out my hand and Actegarde accepts. We cut through the crowd and the tables up to the dais where Reinhold is "holding court." The president is still standing by the raised table, but he's talking to Silk while Pal hovers nearby.

         Kayta is sitting near Reinhold looking bored, but some liveliness flickers into his dark eyes when he catches sight of me. He gets up and leads me and my guest up into this most elite company at the gathering. "Ah, Fishsticks! My sort of company at last. Who's your friend?"

         "This is Actegarde."

         "Pleased to meet you." She's the kind of girl who can somehow secure an invitation to this party, but her smile still stretches from ear to ear as she shakes Kayta's hand.

         "Reinhold," Kayta punctuates the new victor's name with a magnificent sigh, "This here's Miss Actegarde, and of course you know Mags."

         "Heeey," Reinhold greets us with all the casualness a teenage boy can muster, "I hope you'll forgive me, Miss A, if I forget your name quick because I have been meeting so many new people lately, but I'm sure it's my pleasure. I like your dress. And…Mags. Huh. So-"

        

         And he asks me what it's like sleeping with Jack. In different words.

 

         "Reinhold!" Kayta snaps.

         Actegarde looks like she's waiting to hear my answer.

         "Yeah," Reinhold just carries on as if he keeps on going along these lines like it's no big deal I'll chime in with a response, "Actually, I finally completely lost my virginity this week! See, I'd promised my mom I wouldn't go all the way until I was past my last reaping and while I was in the hospital, one of the nurses-"

         "Reinhold!" Kayta repeats, sharper.

         "Oh, I don't mind listening," Actegarde smiles sweetly.

         "You, uh, you carry on," I say to Reinhold, unable to summon up anything better, "Being so…positive." I leave Actegarde listening to Reinhold's anecdote as I step down from the dais and walk away.

         "I'm sorry," Kayta falls in alongside me, "I had no idea he'd do that. He's… Well, he's not the easy fit Silk was, I guess. We have some learning to understand one another to do."

         I'm still slightly numb with the previous embarrassment. I shake my head. "It's not your fault."

         "I mean," Kayta sucks in a noisy breath, "I'm glad I have him, but…"

         With tributes, maybe if there are potential volunteers you can encourage or discourage them, but, basically, you have to work with what you get. Kayta and Raisin asked for a second victor for 7 for their wedding present and that's what they got.

         I pull myself together better. "It'll work out." Maybe not as fast or as smoothly as he'd like, but I wouldn't tell him that if I didn't believe it. Kayta can handle the truth.

 

         Jack shakes off his associated liaison from Victor Affairs to approach us. He tugs on the gauzy veil of stars over my hair. "Have you made it your thing to wear this to all of the victory parties?"

         "I don't know."

         "I kind of like it," he runs his fingers over the fabric, "The way it floats around you."

         "If I were you two," Kayta says, "I'd take advantage of things not to have a late night out. …Reinhold's not going to wind down anytime soon, I'm sure."

         "Sorry," I reply.

         "Good advice," says Jack.

         Kayta returns to his new victor with reluctance weighing down every step, though Pal turns and whatever words he addresses toward Kayta then bring a smile back to his face.

         "A spin or two on the dance floor and then an early night?" Jack inquires.

         I acquiesce to his suggestion or request.

         I imagine the party roaring on through the night and into the dawn as I ride back toward Jack's apartment. I don't mean to do it, but I must be more worn out than I realized, the way I drift off, leaning against Jack's arm, the thin fabric of the veil pressed between us, separating him and me.

 

*****

 

         I had thought myself headed to Jack's place, but I awaken in the Games Center. I call up Jack, intending to let him know I'll be going home (two new ghosts along with me), but he acts really eager about wanting to see me and asks if he can come for breakfast.

         "Well," Aulie gives me a hug when I tell him, "I know when I'm not needed. I'll leave the rest to Jack and Apple. You have a good meal and a safe trip home."

         "Thank you, Aulie. You were a real help."

         "I don't want to be the third wheel!" Apple jumps up when she sees him leaving, "If you go, it won't be a group thing- it'll be me sitting in and making poor Mags feel awkward."

         "I'm sure we'll manage, Apple," I try and excuse it, but Apple is having none of it.

         "I," she declares definitively, "Will collect dear Maria and poor Jerrick and go ahead to the station and wait for you. Just be sure not to miss your train, Mags. That would be embarrassing for both of us." She collects a few final items she's left spread out and stuff them into her purse, then stops to smooth back a stray strand of my hair. "You have my number. Call me if there's a change in plans or you need anything."

         "Yes," I am swept away by all this, "Yes, I will."

        

         And then they're both gone and the floor is silent.

 

         Until Jack comes. "Oh, it's even sadder when it's so empty," he murmurs.

         "I couldn't start until you showed up since they cook so fast, but I sent out for a few things so I could make you eggs." There isn't any kitchen in our quarters, but I made some quick inquiries and managed to be delivered a pan, a few eggs, a fork, and a hot plate. For the rest of the meal, I decided not to put out the people who intended things to be done a certain way in the complex too much, and allowed the Avoxes in the kitchen to put together some simple cut fruit and toast to go on the side.

         "Now there's a surprise!" Jack laughs. "Do you like eggs a lot?"

         "Papa and I eat them practically every day." I start to get to work.

         Jack comes to stand behind me. It's easy for him to watch over my shoulder (he could watch over my head pretty much if he wanted). "Is there anything you'd like me to do to help?"

         "No, it's easy. You can sit down."

         I don't look, but I can hear his steps and the slight scrape of the chair legs being pulled across the floor. "Umm, there's something sort of silly about last night I kind of want to tell you," I focus my eyes on the eggs as I stir them around the pan, "But it's…sort of personal? So don't laugh, okay?"

         "I won't laugh." He sounds quite sincere. "Tell me."

         "Last night… I had a dream we were in a boat."

         "A boat?"

         "I have lots of dreams about boats." It only occurs to me now that this probably isn't nearly as common a subject of dreams for people from other districts as it is for me. It didn't expect to have him speak up about that part.

         But Jack accepts it easily, "Oh, okay," prompting me to go on.

         "It was a little boat. A row boat. For some reason, there weren't any oars." Sure, that's how dreams can be, but it's the last part that gets me. That feels so personal, but still I want to tell. "There weren't any oars," I repeat myself a little, "But I wasn't worried at all."

         The eggs sizzle. I scrape them onto a plate.

         I dream about boats all the time. A lot of those dreams are mundane, although, ever since my Games, a lot of them are also bothersome, even if they're not outright nightmares. But even though this dream was strange, adrift with Jack, I felt all right. I felt safe.

         I bring the eggs over to the table and split them between our two plates.

         Jack seems thoughtful, mulling over what I've told him. He tastes the eggs and he's smiling again. "These are really good."

         Over breakfast, we just make small talk.

         We do some perfunctory cleaning up, since, although the Avoxes are still meant to handle that, I just don't feel right leaving everything to them. It's not polite. I want them to know that I appreciate the work that they do.

 

         Jack sits down on the couch. "…about your dream," he begins.

         "Yeah?" I sit next to him.

         "That sounds nice. The two of us like that. It-" he struggles to find the right words with which to frame his sentiment, "It makes me really happy to hear that."

         "Oh, uh-" How do I respond to that? "Thank you."

         He leans his head down lower, his eyes poised just above mine. "I'm happy with you too," he replies.

         I feel my face growing hot.

         And when he kisses me, I respond in kind.

         His hand falls to the hem of my shirt, fingers dancing half under, half over the fabric. "May I?" he breathes, a heated whisper.

         "Ah," I nod, agreeable, if tentative.

         His hand slides up beneath my shirt, warm against my skin.

         My fingertips, previously balanced on the edge of his shoulder, hold tight. We should stop, a part of me thinks, while I can still stand to say to stop. Whatever love we have for one another, crossing this line won't solve anything.

         "May I?" Jack asks.

         "Yes," I say.

 

 

 

 

         I am nineteen years old and unlike my old friends back home who impatiently, passionately, pre-empted all but inevitable marriages or mutually dallied without much thought beyond their momentary youthful indiscretions, it is only for a brief while I can be fully distracted from the fact that I have given myself to a funny, kind, and handsome man who can never completely be mine.

 

 

         Back home in 4 it doesn't feel like there's anyone I can naturally tell what happened. It seems like it would be mean to inform 'Lito, who carries on mildly as my friend, though I'm fairly certain he'd like trying things out from Jack's side of this equation; awkward to bring up with Faline, who is, understandably, still a ways removed from this at fourteen, and, well, Papa is Papa. So I keep it to myself.

         I give the photos of Maria and Jerrick away to their families. We have another double funeral in 4 and I burst into tears as Padre Tino speaks the words.

         "No one thinks this is your fault," Jerrick's mother tries to reassure me even though she's bawling too.

         I want to arrange for condolences bouquets to be sent to their families, but I can't hold myself together enough to put in the order with Michella. Papa takes over for me.

         I'm pretty much miserable for a few days after that.

         I can see the moon out my window and it's particularly large and bright tonight. If I adjust my gaze to be focused more "out" really than up, I can see it shimmering across the water, white and yellow and even a tad orange at the corners. The moon isn't round when it's reflected on the ocean- the water would never be still enough for that. It sways and stretches, alive and fickle.

         I don't think it's inspired by the moon, but I think about Jack.

         Wherever he is, there's no ocean for him to look at. The moon isn't dancing like this for Jack.

         ...time in the Capitol and District 1 both is a bit behind the time here in 4. So it isn't as late for Jack as it is for me. I consider calling him wherever he is.

         The moon on the water isn't going to give me an answer no matter how long I stare at it.

         I let myself watch a while longer anyway.

         So, if I call Jack, what do I say to him? If I'm going to call him, especially at night, there needs to be a reason.

         But I don't have one.

         I decide not to call.

 

 

         Eventually, Faline shows up and I remember that I have something for her. "I bought you a book," I say, "Wait here," and head up into my room to get into the nearly forgotten bag from my book-browsing trip with Aulie. "Here," I hold it out in front of me as I come down the stairs, "Looks kind of scary-exciting?" I suggest.

         "'The Collected Tales of Jules Verne,'" Faline reads off the title, "Oh, wow." There's a drawing on the front of a gigantic octopus wrapping its arms around some sort of fantastic underwater vessel. "Thank you so much," she smiles and it makes me smile too.

         We sit on the floor of the living room and talk. Faline tells me the dreamcatcher I made her is working well and asks about mine.

         I flush as I bring it up and she gives me a funny look, but it seems like the right situation in which to mention that, while, unfortunately, I still have a lot of unpleasant dreams, I did manage to have that one about Jack.

         Faline's too nice to really tease though.

         I tell her things about Maria and Jerrick- how the parts went that they weren't able to see- with permission, even encouragement, really, for her to tell any of their other acquaintances who want to know. I tell about Silk and her plans to make a set of victor dolls. She thinks I should get caps and shirts for everyone in the club.

 

 

         Encouraged by Faline, apparently, 'Lito comes to see me on his next day off. We go out in his dinghy, as we tend to.

         We don't talk as much as Faline and I do, but we tend to share a companionable silence.

         "I met a girl from Up-District toward the end of the Games," he says at length, "She came with her older brother to see how much some work by the boat shop would cost."

         "Well, is it true what they say about people Up-District? That they're all a bunch of outlaws hiding out in the bayou?" I make sure that, from my tone and my expression he can tell that I don't think any of that is true.

         "Some of it must be true, because she's got such light brown hair and a, I don't know what way, but a different kind of face. She doesn't look like anyone else I know."

         I hadn't expected that. "…Do you think it's like Reza? She's got a parent who just ended up here when the fences went up?"

         "Maybe." 'Lito shakes his head. "I didn't ask. Too personal, you know? But she's just a year younger than you and me. She could be from somewhere else herself and just not remember it."

         It's interesting. And it's also nice to hear about some further happiness in 'Lito's life. "What's her name?"

         "Delphine Monwell."

         "That's pretty."

        

 

         Jack mails me a small, brown paper package of photographs of us. "I thought maybe you'd like this," is all the note says. It's signed, "Your friend, Jack," the same as everything else he's ever mailed me. We look so happy in all the pictures. I set them out in my bedroom, but pick one to offer Papa for the family album if he'd like. He ends up putting it up in a small driftwood frame in the living room. I overhear Dan Armain commenting on it when he's visiting the following week, swapping work stories and chatting about his niece, Leelee, and how great things have been for her since they moved into our old house together.

         "My 'son-in-law,'" Papa quips.

         Mr. Armain takes this in stride and complains that Jack is almost certainly a preferable in-law to his "nephew-in-law" Tomas (not that he's ever done anything so terrible, but Tomas, who adopted the Armain name upon his marriage, does have a reputation about town as a layabout).

         "Not too high a bar to leap seeing as I don't have to feed and clothe and house mine," Papa replies. "…But I would. I would be happy to."

         A few days later I sort of take this topic up with Papa, not with any expectations, but just for a lark. "Papa, if Jack lived here, would you take him out on your boat and teach him the ropes?"

         His face takes on a bemused cast. "Well, if he wanted to learn, I would, but I think he prefers his career as an entertainer. Also, we don't know if he gets seasick."

         "I never thought of that!" I burst out laughing. "I don't even know if he can swim, Papa! He's never been in the ocean. Did you know you can't even go walk on the beach in District One even though the maps show it coming up right to the coast? Mostly you can't even see the ocean- there's a huge wall."

         "Huh, well, there's that," he scratches his chin (it might be bothering him- he's gone a while longer than usual without shaving- I'm not sure I should say anything about it in case he's thinking of trying out a beard and I'm going to embarrass him).

         "If they'd really wanted to punish us after the war, they could've gone with relocation and shipped the lot of us off to other districts. Taken us apart, some left here, others to Ten, to Nine…and maybe the worst of all to One, since an ocean you could never reach sounds so much worse than none at all…"

         "Geez, Papa, promise me you'll never go work for the president or the Gamemakers," I shudder, "You have a dangerous imagination."

         "Now, see, I think they didn't do it though because it would've inconvenienced them too much. If they put me down in Ten or Nine or wherever, I'm basically useless- if I'm not catching fish or maintaining a boat, I have to fall back on my studies with Padre and most of that was not, strictly speaking, legal. So then there's not enough, um, steak? Or bread? Or whatever the Capitol wants from these districts because there aren't enough folks who can produce it properly. The punishment can't take way from their satisfaction, you know?"

         "You're really smart, Papa." It's one of the surprising, amusing things about these conversations with him. I never know when the talk will go down this sort of path.

         "I have too much time for thinking," he admits. "Oh, okay," he steers back toward what I started with, "He'll be a house husband. I'll teach him how to make you breakfast. The two of us'll just hang around the house while you run everything all over District Four."

         "Well, now I know your retirement plans," I tease him.

         "I won't retire all at once. I'll just gradually slow down more and more, one bit at a time 'til suddenly you realize I've handed my boat down to somebody else."

         "Hey, with the money we invested in fixing it up you know I consider that partially my boat too! You better at least tell me what you're going to do with it!"

         We laugh about it.

         When I consider the sort of family I have, I am content. I have friends in my district and see them as long term; I have friends among my fellow victors and don't doubt we will also remain as such. When it comes to family, Papa is enough. (Jack straddles these lines uneasily, someone so dear to me, the problem and not the solution).

 

         "You look better with a little time between you and them," Padre Tino notes the next time he sees me in town.

         "Time heals most wounds," I suggest.

         "I wouldn't want your job," he admits, "It's harder than mine." Peterzeno hurries to catch up to him, carrying an overloaded basket of oranges on one arm and a large piece of fish wrapped in newspaper in the other. "This one wants both jobs," Padre sighs sadly.

         "Hola," Zeno greets me.

         "Hey, Zeno," I nod. "You help out Mr. Neska real well, huh?"

         "I try," he shrugs. "You know, we've still been meeting up for the club without you- we just go to the Southtown Beach instead of coming over to the Victors' Village and making noise. …I've got two new brothers now, you know," he perks up.

         "Two new brothers?"

         "Ryn and Luke!"

         "You can afford to take in more kids, Mr. Neska?" I ask Padre.

         "Well, you know Remir has his job, and now Danio's moved out on his own too, so…"

         "I like being an older brother," Zeno declares.

         "They're good boys…" Padre Tino sighs, "Happy to be out of the home, I suppose."

         "I'll bring them to meet you," Zeno goes on, "Maybe next time you meet up with the club?"

         "No, not next time," I decide, "The time after that or so. The first time we get back together, it'll be too sad. We're all going to be remembering Jerrick and Maria."

 

 

         I transition back to a life much like the one I lived following Silk's victory. The club meets and mourns. I have two new ghosts and they fall into easy company with the four that came before them.

         Reinhold gets all sorts of inane media coverage, just like every other new victor. He seems to enjoy suggesting that girls are falling all over him now back home. His pretty young mother and Kayta are always shaking their heads over this.

         The Capitol reporters are interested in Reinhold's love life, even if all they're really getting are his own possibly exaggerated stories about it. They're also interested in Kayta and Raisin's love life, which Reinhold is happy to try and interpret for them, though he does allow the caveat here that he doesn't know what's actually going on.

         I stay up late watching some of these dumb shows because I sort of enjoy seeing Raisin and the weird semi-normalcy of Kayta's life…I think. It's also nice to see the focus of the cameras shift either farther from Silk. Having her sixteenth birthday pass during the Games provided a pretty good smokescreen for that milestone too.

         In the morning I wake up around my ordinary time, but I don't feel very rested. I sluggishly head downstairs.

         "Good morning," Papa greets me, "Hungry? How's this look?" he holds up the pan.

"Uh, I don't want it," I frown. The smell of eggs fills the kitchen and nothing about the way Papa is cooking them seems any different than usual. …But somehow I don't like it this morning. I like eggs. I love Papa's eggs. I'm always in the mood for Papa's eggs. There was a week or so after my Games where I was so glad for them I was eating them twice a day.

         "Oh." The slightest twinge of disappointment- or is it surprise?- crosses his brow. "Okay. I guess I will put this in a sandwich for my lunch." He rolls with my waves. "Is there something else you'd like me to make you?"

         "No, it's okay." I don't want to bother him. Even with the laidback way he works these days, he's still going to want to get the boat out there. It's not like I'm ill or anything and need him home. "I'm not very hungry. I think I'll just have some tea and crackers."

         "Easy on the stomach," Papa agrees.

         He boxes up a lunch for himself and goes about the remaining parts of his morning routine, kissing my forehead and wishing me a good day before he leaves.

         I take things slowly for a while, but I don't have any trouble with my bland meal. I'm not sick.

         I go into town and buy some groceries. No one will let me overpay them, but no one complains if it seems like I'm buying more than Papa and I need. I'm not anything special as a cook, but the bread I make is all right. I bake little rolls shaped like turtles to give out to my 'club' this afternoon.

         They go over well.

         After what happened to Maria and Jerrick, I think I'm pretty confident in considering each boy and girl present a real diehard. 'Lito can't come as much as he'd like to anymore (too much work), but it's not as if he really needs it, not being in any danger of being reaped. Che has also aged out of the odds, and, so far, hasn't been able to come at all since the Fourteenth Games, except to get together and remember our fallen friends. He was signed on to work on one of the big boats and he's out at sea for hours and sometimes days at a time. I see him sometimes on Sunday with 'Lito since they seem to have become pretty good friends. Che's not exactly thrilled with his job and has been wondering if it's not too late to be hired on by 'Lito's father for the boat shop instead.

         Rodrigo Shoal has one last year to go. Throughout everything, I think he's been the most dedicated to the training process. More dedicated than I have possibly. If he hadn't come to see me after I came back without Shaya or Salvador the whole thing might've dropped off for a while at least. He's a strong swimmer, he's got a great throwing arm, and his attitude is even better. I'm not exactly sure what kind of job prospects he's looking at post-graduation, but if they're the sort that will keep him from being part of the club, I may have to try and see if there's some way I can keep his schedule open by hiring him to work for me. Rodrigo, I think, understands what I'm aiming for the best of all of them, and that, along with advantages in continuity of members/leaders of the club, makes me desire some way that this won't be the final year he sticks around. (The one thing that sticks with me here though is that Rodrigo may volunteer. Rodrigo is now the likeliest to volunteer. And if he does, I have no illusions that I can save him. Maybe he could save himself. Maybe not.)

         Peterzeno continues to be another morale raiser. He's not exactly the most, uh, coordinated club member (he has an amazingly unlucky tendency to hit his head on…virtually everything it's possible to hit one's head on), but he's among the spunkiest people I've known.

         Sometimes he brings his adopted brothers (Padre Tino's other students) with him, but none of them stand as committed members of the club on their own. The oldest one, Remir, is older than me; very pale and bookish. He works as a clerk and librarian at the town school. He's close to being a padre himself and tells little religious stories when we take a lunch break if he's there. I get the impression he feels kind of sorry for me having stumbled into a line of work that's so focused on death.

         Danio, the same age as me, comes only once. He's moved far Down-District to work and…do his other work in the southwest.

         The next oldest one, Canbri, is eighteen and shy.

         The littler brothers, the new ones, Ryn and Luke, are the first tagalongs the club has had below reaping age at eleven and ten. It makes me think about this a bit. You don't learn anything when you're older the way you learn it when you're a kid. With things the way they are, too many young kids would only slow practice down, but a couple about that age could benefit without having to be babysit overmuch.

         Estelle is staying with the club through her last year of eligibility because she likes it, but she admits to me she's now sure she doesn't have any intention of volunteering, "…Though I wouldn't want anyone to say, 'oh poor Estelle' and rush up in my place if I got called…" Her apprenticeship with Dr. Haddock is coming along very well and by the time she graduates from school he'll be ready to certify her as a fully-fledged nurse. Honestly, the district needs her in that capacity, so I wouldn't push her to volunteer.

         Faline is fractionally taller than me now (though it just looks like we're about the same height to the casual observer) and I wonder how much taller she'll end up growing. Reza Surfjan is in my pocket as long as Faline sticks around. I think it's pretty clear they're mutually enamored, but there's no "official" relationship there. I saw them hold hands once when I don't think they thought anyone was watching.

         The unlucky fate of Maria and Jerrick has curtailed the interest in some friends of members that I pictured as potential new recruits. There are just two new ones, girls Estelle knows from Down-District, with large families and growling stomaches- Safia and Viorica. They like it that I get them a free meal. And on days like today when I've baked, there are inevitably more rolls than there are club members (even more so with Che and 'Lito no-shows), so I'm able to reasonably pass on the leftovers for them to take home.

         Viorica, it turns out, lives on the same stretch of low-lying town as Maria Atwater, the girl about my age who credited the flush of goods my victory brought with her managing to keep her baby. I barely remember this, but Viori tells me this Maria is a very devoted follower of all my publicity as a result. "See, she was always talking about how good you are? But it wasn't like she knew you personally. So when Estelle came by saying the same thing, I got sort of wondering," she laughs as she explains it to me.

         I ask her to tell Maria Atwater hello from me and I hope her son is doing well.

         This ends up delighting the young woman in question, according to Viori. Although she's generally far too busy to come see me and respond in person, via Viori she sends a wreath she made of dried flowers. I hang it on the inside of my bedroom door.

 

 

         The club carries on as the summer progresses. Zeno's younger brothers come more often and I wonder if we might have them hooked, but I'm not going to ask and risk scaring them off. It's not like there's anything official about our group. If it were official, I'd probably risk getting in trouble.

         I've called up my counterparts in 2 and we've chatted a few times, but both Hector and Gerik have been cagey about whatever potential tributes are getting up to in there, aside from some smilingly sighed over comments about the sister of the girl from the Thirteenth Games who still hasn't given up hassling Hector and ambushing Hector and doing chin-ups on the gutters of Hector's house (Gerik's usual calm breaks to guffaw over this).

         So. Well, there has to be something.

 

         I see Jack a few times and Aulie as well.

         I don't find the right time to visit Apple, but we do keep in touch. She calls occasionally (and I even get her to talk to Papa once, though he hardly seems to know what to say). Mainly we start up a habit of mailing each other things. I pack up interesting shells I find or selections from my further attempts at making woven jewelry.

         Apple sends lots of clippings.

         "Thought you would like this," reads Apple's note in loopy, purple cursive. It's clipped to several pages carefully cut from a magazine. "Art Imitates Life," reads the title of the very sparse article. It's mainly just big photo spreads of Silk and her victor dolls projects. Silk holding the one like her and Pal holding the one of him. Silk with her supplies laid out around her. Silk peering into the dollhouse at a little arrangement of the Teejay and Sunny dolls with extra doll clothes and fabric pieces around them like they're folding laundry. The doll of me is sitting in the kitchen. I like how lively 'my' hair looks, made out of, apparently, wool felt.

         Silk has completed six dolls thus far in her set. The sixth is Jack. He is the only one whose face is painted show a toothy grin rather than a smaller, more modest type of smile. The Jack doll is also in the dollhouse kitchen, a tiny pie, not sized quite properly for these dolls, balanced across his hands.

         I show Papa, who laughs, and Faline, who sighs rather nostalgically. "I would've wanted dolls like these so much when I was littler. …Heh heh, is Jack baking you a pie?"

         "It kind of looks like it."

         Faline tells me a bit about the book I brought back for her. She's been enjoying it, though she does have one caveat regarding the picture on the cover as compared to the story it's illustrating. "The text said it was a giant squid," she says with an indignant laugh, "But you saw it! That picture is obviously of a giant octopus!"

         "Oh, that's right!"

         "I don't think the person who drew the picture knew the difference!"

 

*****

 

         There are more storms this Autumn than there were last year. Some boats are damaged and this brings in work for the Ortizes and their boat shop. The work 'Lito and his brother and the other employees did for Delphine Monwell's family holds up though. He admits to me he's disappointed that he hasn't seen her since.

         As usual, talk about customs and fashions in District 7 picks up as the Victory Tour nears. Reinhold has this way of dressing where he wears a sort of stereotypical plaid lumberjack shirt in an unusual way, over-sized and hanging off one shoulder, that gets copied in the Capitol. His more prominent than average sideburns get attention too.

         At a club gathering, where we all study one of the books I brought home and try to learn some special style of self-defense, Che shows up in an oversized t-shirt, knotted on one bottom corner, and pretends to be Reinhold. Everyone laughs as long as it's just about the way Reinhold dresses. He was good at killing. There isn't anything funny about that.

 

         Because, in the Capitol more than anywhere else, there's always a desire to be moving on to the next great thing, Reinhold's Victory Tour goes over very well from the get-go. He's different than Silk. Kayta's relationship with him almost couldn't be further from Pal's with Silk. Reinhold is an older victor, a better fighter, more outspoken, pushy and pleased to take whatever attention is offered him.

         He gets a bit drunk in 12 and then he eats so much beautiful-looking fruit in 11 while still hungover from the stop in 12 that he throws up on the side of a dirt road near the orchard. He's a gift to every comedian the Capitol has and they rib him mercilessly. Jack even gets in on it during his regular morning segment, playing out a little skit of being "jealous" over all the attention Reinhold is getting and, therefore, copying all the things he does, wearing his layer shirts like Reinhold, drawing on bigger sideburns, and calling in an order on-air for some local alcohol from 12.

         In 10, Reinhold goes horseback riding, which he picks up very quickly, but he also makes some seemingly innocuous comment to Emmy which sends her into a hurricane of tears, leading to her early exit from the proceedings. There's an element in the crowd in 9 that tries to show their distaste for him with stony silence, but they're overpowered by the politely welcoming element the Capitol makes sure is present. If Luna makes any comments, they aren't aired. She looks annoyed onscreen and I think about her getting carried away at the party in the Capitol, but nothing I see is very telling.

         He's received better in 8, possibly because they've had their turn so recently and know what he and 7 must be feeling like having theirs. He wants to get driving lessons in 6 when he sees some of the racing-stripe-painted cars, but the people in charge won't let him.

         I'm not as nervous this time when a reminder of the rules for the the District 4 stop arrives. No one sends me any clothes either. I'll get to pick my own.

         Reinhold gets on well in District 5. None of his rowdy jokes shock Shy; she laughs at all of them, even ones that make Mac and Kayta blush. Jack calls me up and we laugh about it. "Looks like Reinhold'll have at least one friend right off the bat, huh? I think he might've met his match with her!"

         "I can't stay up late," I insist, though it's a lot of fun talking to him like this, "He'll be here tomorrow and I've gotta be together for it."

         "Fine, fine," Jack lets me go, "Good night."

 

         In the morning, I wake up early feeling sick to my stomach. It's the kind of thing I would attribute to nerves, but I wasn't feeling concerned about this event before. Maybe I was more concerned than I actually realized.

         I'm relieved this time not to ride out to the train station to meet Kayta and Reinhold there. Traversing the bumpy road would hardly be what my insides need. I sit on the waiting stage wearing my District 4 booster cap and a green sundress while various Capitol camera and lighting individuals work away alongside me. Tosca arrives ahead of Reinhold, how is having some such 'triumphant entry into town' filmed.

         Everything seems even more perfectly planned and set up than it was last year. Even when Reinhold gets there, the cameras stick tight to him, taking in his reactions and remarks.

         When we finally meet, it's while Tosca looks over the footage so far to digitally choose what to send on ahead to the editing room- they'll put together the almost live broadcast one bit at a time- and the uninvolved cameramen shoot filler of the district environs.

         Kayta hugs me with one arm around my shoulders. "I see you're still in love with that hat."

         "Good to see you too, Kayta," I hug him back.

         "Raisin, as always, says hello."

         "Hey," Reinhold leans toward me and I lean slightly back in response to his proximity, "Are you pregnant?"

         I sputter in confusion.

         "Reinhold!" Kayta snaps.

         "I didn't want to spoil your thunder if you wanted to say so on camera," Reinhold continues, "I mean, I only know how Seven owes everyone else for this year with the sponsors, but my mom's a midwife; I'm around knocked up girls all the time."

         Kayta is giving his new victor a 'could you be any more rude?' sort of look, but my mind is reeling at the actual possibility of this. I've felt strange. I've put on some more weight, but that's been a constant since my victory. I haven't had my period. But that part wasn't strange either- maybe it's come more frequently since about the time of my Tour with my diet improved and my stress leveling off, but it's never panned out to anything I'd consider regular. And that's normal around here. …but where it once had no significance, now. Now. Now that I've.

         My horror must show on my face. "Mags?" Kayta drops the "Fishsticks" bit, "Are you feeling all right?"

         Reinhold seems quite cheerful as opposed to Kayta's worries. "Is it someone local's? …Or is it Jack's?" He smiles brighter, cheekier, at that supposition. "Loam and leaves, what a thing!" He shakes my hand, "Congratulations. I love babies."

         "I." I feel like I am observing all these things from outside myself. "I don't know that I am," I manage to inform Reinhold, though his eyes continue to levitate toward my midsection with a pleasant air.

         "I really, really apologize about him," Kayta insists.

         "Let's just," I stumble, "Let's not mention it in front of the cameras."

         "Yeah, sure," Reinhold agrees. I think "knowing" for himself is entertaining enough to him. "I guess you don't plant a tree when a new baby's born here?" he muses.

 

         I am freed to think more freely as Tosca and 7's escort pull Reinhold away for more filming. Kayta stays beside me. "It could be someone here…right?" he eyes me nervously, "It's not necessarily Jack…?"

         I need to sit down. …I end up settling for the ground as there doesn't seem to be a chair near enough for me to reach it. Kayta kneels down in front of me, brow furrowed, and intent on receiving an answer. "No," I take a deep breath, "No. There's only Jack."

         Kayta runs a hand through his hair. "Well, if he's right, I guess this is going to be a learning experience for all of us."

         Aside from we victors, there are no district citizens able to intermingle legally. …But can even victors from different districts be allowed to have a child? Where would they live? What kind of family would they be?

         …What kind of father would Jack be?

                  ……what kind of mother would I be?

 

         The rest of Reinhold's visit passes in something of a blur. Aeka Brill gives him a ride on a sailboat, he manage to be polite as he makes his requisite speeches, Papa finagles his way into getting the seat on the other side of Kayta during the banquet and they proceed to have a rather involved discussion about the freshwater fish up in 7.

         And then I'm saying goodbye to the men from 7. Goodbye for now. See you in the Capitol. "If it's his," Kayta gives me one last piece of advice, "Well, they can figure that out, but lie anyway. When they reinforced the fences and counted all the people there were some rail workers who lied. But no one contradicted them and they got to stay in Seven. You might swing the same deal."

         "Say 'hi' back to Raisin for me," I murmur weakly.

         Reinhold rubs my shoulder in what I think is meant to be a nice gesture and gives a more standard parting. He waves out the window as the train pulls away.

         "Well, that was stimulating," Mayor Current declares as the two of us stand on the platform, surrounded by a single circle of light in the middle of the darkness once the film crew's lights have gone. Shaya's ghost stands between us, stiff and prim. The people below the platform begin to disperse.

         "You look pale tonight," the mayor continues. "Would you like a ride home?"

         "Yeah, if it's not too much trouble, thank you."

         He takes me out to where the road goes closest to our Victors' Village and when we get there he even stops the car and accompanies me to the pier. The tide is in, so I can't walk over to the island. I have to row the coracle over.

         "Miss Gaudet," the mayor says, giving me a hand down into the boat, "I'm still sorry about this year too. And whatever it is you do with those kids to prepare them, you keep at it. I'm not going to interrupt. As far as I'm concerned, it is entirely authorized. If, at any time, you need someone in a position of authority to speak to that, you just come to me."

         "Thank you, sir. Thank you for the ride."

         If Jerrick hadn't volunteered this year, both his children would probably be dead. If some girl had been up for volunteering last year, both would be alive. Mayor Current watches me row the boat for a while before turning back and climbing into his vehicle.

         I reach the other side without incident. Out of all the houses on the island, only one has a light on- in the living room of my house. Papa's returned ahead of me. I walk a little closer, but not all the way to the house. I just stay still there in the dark, observing what I can see lit up inside. Papa is sitting on the couch, probably watching recap footage of this very stop on Reinhold's Victory Tour now that they're kept up with making the programming nearly live. Papa always seems pleased to see himself on television. It's sort of funny since Papa is so quiet.

         One house on our Victors' Island is a home. Is it like there's a light on now inside of me?

         I press my hand to my stomach and hope I am alone inside myself. I am afraid of the idea. How could I be pregnant? Not "how" the process, but, but- How could it happen to me? I was in the Games because I volunteered. It was crazy, but I knew it was. This is- this is so stupid. I can only hope it isn't. That Reinhold was wrong.

         Now I have to figure out what's the least embarrassing way to find out for sure. No old wives' tales. A real, medically proven answer. Dr. Haddock, I suppose. I will go while Papa's working. If this is just a scare, I don't want him to know.

         I take a deep breath.

         I head into my house.

         As I expected, Papa is watching Tour footage. "Welcome back," he greets me. "Oh, Kayta is so handsome. …But I don't look too bad, right? Not for my age?"

         "Yeah, you look great," I assure him.

         "You, though," he turns to face me, "You look tired. Even more now. It's because you were feeling sick earlier, huh? You should go upstairs right now and get some good sleep."

         "Yes," I fold immediately, "That was my plan. Good night, Papa."

         "Good night, Mags."

 

 

         He doesn't wake me up the following morning even though I oversleep. That means he thinks I could use the sleep. I move about slowly at first before my important business comes rushing back to me. Then the house is filled with the patter of my bare feet on the wooden floors as I hurry to get ready and answer my question as discreetly as possible.

         The tide is headed. I wade across the way, pulling the coracle along behind me through about eight inches of water to make sure at least one is back on the townward side. With Reinhold moved on to 3, it's an ordinary day in 4 again. Kids are in school, people are busy with work, the boats are out. I see a couple of people I know as I pass through town, but no one distracts me from my goal.

         Miss Nasika, the doctor's wife and chief nurse, greets me as I come inside. "Good morning, Mags, what brings you? How's your father?"

         "He's fine. Did you catch him at the Victory Banquet? He feels just how he looked."

         This makes her laugh. I approach the counter and speak again in a considerably smaller voice. "I'm here for a pregnancy test."

         "Oh, I see." She jots a note down on the schedule. "Eleck," she calls her husband as she jostles through the cabinet in search of my file.

         "Oh, Mags," the doctor pops out of his office. "I haven't seen you for a while. Not since…before," he calls it.

         "Umm, yeah." I accept my file (like my records back at school, it's just a few sheets of paper in an off-white envelope) and follow him into the exam room, where he unlocks a cabinet to retrieve the proper testing supplies.

         Each step becomes heavier than the last, weighted by trepidation.

         My official test.

         My official answer.

         For all the rarity of telephones in the district, Dr. Haddock has one for emergencies. "Is there someone I should call for you?" he wonders from my look upon receiving the results. "You can lie down if you need to."

         I don't know. I don't know.

         I accept a paper cup filled with water. My hand shakes, like Papa's tremor. I take a tiny sip.

         I don't know what to say to Dr. Haddock and Miss Nasika, but I must seem composed and coherent since they let me leave. I walk back to the sandbar. The tide is even lower. I slosh one slow step at a time through the ankle deep water.

         I don't go into my house. Instead, I head straight over and down to our island's secluded beach. Some say the ocean heals all things. Salt water, sweat, tears. I sit down in the surf and get all soaked, just like that, in my clothes.

         I'm pregnant. So, how do I tell? Who do I tell first? I'm concerned that calling Jack isn't all that secure as far as secrecy, but, of course, he has to know. Papa? I'm not sure Faline or 'Lito are any more equipped to deal with this information than I am. Pal or Sunny would probably be reassuring, but, again, I'm concerned about the inter-district phone lines. I'm not all that close to anyone who's ever had a baby. My medical condition alone scares me even without figuring in how things may be complicated by my identity and that of my child's father. Living it is not the same as the boring 'biology of life' section of science class.

         …Will Jack be happy to hear this? I can picture Jack beaming, but I can also see him shocked. At least I'm sure he won't be angry. That's not what he's like.

         If the baby is like Jack, they might have his pretty eyes, his friendly smile. They might grow up tall. I don't know what sort of child Jack was.

         If the baby is like Papa, they might have dimples. They might be gentle and kind and short and studious. Or if they baby is like Mama, they might have beautiful hair and never be afraid of anything (so they say, so they say- I didn't know Mama long enough to judge her brave).

         It's not comforting to think of the baby being like me. They would grow up to be the kind of careless person who volunteered for danger with a big, goofy smile. That is where and how I see my future child- not a baby in my arms, but a gangly young teen on a summer day. Jack's grin and shouting just like me: "I volunteer!" The nightmare not of the ordinary parent- of seeing their child reaped- but of the person who encourages _other people's_ children to volunteer- to do too good a job of creating volunteers. And if I were to have a healthy child, a talented child, a strong child, and someday to say, "It's not your place to even consider going into the arena," would I be a hypocrite?

         Or maybe none of that matters, because my child will be called from the first, and no one will volunteer and I (or Jack?) will mentor them, and no amount of sponsor gifts will save them.

         Oh, in this country, who would ever chose to have a child?

         I am a mess. I go home and shower and change. I call Pal. "Will you be in the Capitol anytime soon?"

         "Ah, Silk accepted an invitation to go to Reinhold's big party, so I'm coming with her." He laughs a little. "You know, designated chaperone."

         "Oh, okay. I don't think I was invited, but can you and I try to meet up out there around then?"

         "I always love to see you," Pal agrees.

         Somewhat encouraged by these results (although nothing particularly difficult was actually said), I call Jack next, choosing right when I pick his number back in 1 (I figure he will be there for Victory Tour-related events). I move quickly through the preliminaries. "I need to talk to you- in person," I append before he can joke about how we're already talking.

         "Sounds serious." In my mind's eye, I can see him furrowing his brow.

         "Kind of. It's important."

         With that hanging uncompleted between us, it's hard to have much more conversation. When I hang up, I go upstairs and lay down on my bed.

 

 

         Papa comes home in time to watch the almost-live Tour in 3 broadcast while eating a small dinner I managed to whip up (just about the only task I've completed all day).

         "That Beto is like a piece of cold toast, huh?" he quips as the camera tracks Beto's amazingly bored expression as Reinhold eats cookies frosted to look like microchips and once again flirts with girls. "I think he hates it a little more each year."

         "That's entirely possible," I allow, biting into my fish-fry sandwich.

         "But this Reinhold, on the other hand, if they let him, he'd be taking a roll under the pier with a girl in every district."

         "Papa!" I laugh, still surprised when he says something like that.

         "Well, you can see how much he wants to," he gestures with the orange slice in his hand. "Good thing he didn't look at you like that or I wouldn't have managed to remain such a polite dinner guest."

         "I don't care how anyone looks at me. If they're just looking, don't say anything. I don't want you getting in trouble," I caution him. There may be perks here and there because of his relationship with me, but they're hardly about to extend so far. There are boundaries that none of us should push against if we're not prepared to be pushed back against in return.

         "Yes, I know. But you always inspire a bit of boldness in me, dear. I want to watch out for you where I can."

         "One way," I start. My eyes fall to my plate. "Well, I mean, I'll need your help, Papa. Probably a lot of it. I'm going to. To have a baby."

         "Ohhh," he stares at me, "Ohh my. Mags, dear."

         "Yeah, I didn't know exactly what to think either." I have a feeling his reaction, to some degree, mirrored my own. I smile, because I love him. Because I know he will be a help with the baby. Who knows what I will do or be or think, but Papa will be a wonderful grandfather.

         "When?" he puts down the orange peel and takes my hand.

         "In the spring."

         He squeezes my hand. "Are you happy, dear?"

         "Umm," I feel myself growing emotional, "I'm not sure. Papa, I guess I wasn't trying as hard as I should've not to, but it just kind of happened by accident."

         "Well, it's like that for a lot of people."

         "And I'm really scared."

         "Oh, Mags," he scoots closer and hugs me. I lean my head on his shoulder and the image of Reinhold speaking before the crowd in 3 reflects meaninglessly onto my eyes. "I'll do anything for you I can," Papa promises, "Whatever you need to do."

         "W-well, I have to." I'm just about to cry and I'd really rather not. "I'm able, so- And you know." I breathe and hope to push the tears back down inside, "You know how I feel about him."

         Papa rubs my back and the niceness is too much so the tears start to run down my face.   "Have you told Jack yet?"

         "No, I wanted to tell him in person." There's a wet patch growing on Papa's shoulder. "N-need to call Victor Affairs. I thought I could get in on Reinhold's day in the Capitol since Jack and some of the others will be there already."

         "That seems logical."

         "P-Papa," I pull back and wipe my eyes on my sleeve, "Don't start making up a baby room while I'm gone."

         "In the Capitol they could already tell you if it's a girl or a boy, I bet."

         "The Capitol's part of what I'm worried about."

         "Oh, Mags. Oh, I'm so sorry that it has to be so scary…"

 

 

         The following day I call up Victor Affairs and ask if, even if, yes, I know it's short notice, but can I come up in two days for the day or so? I get the okay. I even get okayed to go to the party for Reinhold because that's what they think I'm calling in regard to. I have no intention of currently disabusing them of this notion.

         Reinhold Meyer is caught in a broom closet in District 2 making good on his promise from the arena. I wonder if this is some kind of victor first. …at least being caught on camera doing so is.

         The following morning the girl is sheepishly interviewed by local District 2 television. "For, um, not a Two guy, he was pretty good," she admits. I am horribly embarrassed to be seeing this over breakfast with Papa. "Not so, uh, endowed, but great with his hands," she continues when prompted. She has oddly charming accent.

         I am astounded at the odds that a tribute would say such a thing, survive, and go on to accomplish it with apparently the complete consent of the second party. Reinhold did not initially strike me as that handsome or charming, but he does have gumption. I will have to try and conquer my task as efficiently as that.

         Instead of staying with Aulie, I make plans to stay with Jack.

         Papa fusses over me extra before I leave. I don't tell anyone else back home about the baby, although I do give Papa permission to tell Mrs. Mirande, provided he swears her to secrecy for the time being.

         I meet Jack at the train station on the day of Reinhold's party. I can't tell him until we're back at his apartment. I pretty much just blurt it out: "Jack, I'm pregnant."

         "You are? Really?!" his eyes go wide, "Oh, geez. Oh, wow. That is important. Wow."

         He's so sweet. But. "We have to talk."

         "Y-you," his face clouds quickly, "We're going to do this, right? I- I would really love to have this baby with you."

         "Yes, well, I am. I will. But I've barely known for three days now and a million things have come to mind and nearly all of them are worries."

         "You," he seems to finally breathe again, "You should sit down." He puts his arm around my shoulders, "We should sit down and talk about this."

         At first I feel like I don't even know where to begin. There's just so much flotsam and jetsam clogging up my mind. But I decide to start with Reinhold, because that part is kind of funny in retrospect, and I work out from there through every type of worry that I can think of from the major ones right on down the line to one I only thought of just now: " _And_ we're not even married."

         And, at this, Jack, who had taken everything else very seriously, begins laughing. "That would help? Would you like to be married?"

         "I- I mean. Well, I just thought about it," I bluster, caught off guard. "It's not like I haven't already been a bit, err, in the wrong with you, but I guess it feels like actually having a baby when we're not married is a whole other thing if we- If-" I feel my face reddening, "If we do love each other."

         "I do," Jack answers, hugging me tight, "I do love you, Mags. I wouldn't have anyone else. Let's get married."

         Things are moving so fast I think my head is spinning.

         "Tell me how you do it in Four," he leans back and looks at me intently.

         "What about in One?"

         "Nah," he dismisses it without a second thought, "I'd rather be married the Four way. The only thing I want you to have from a One-style wedding is the ring- and that's assuming they don't give rings like it in Four, which might be completely erroneous because I just don't know."

         "Oh, okay." I think it over. "There are lots of, uh, frills, I guess, you can add, but for a proper wedding, I suppose what you need is salt water and the grass net and at least two witnesses. You stand under the net together and put saltwater on each other's lips and say the words." I nod to myself. We obviously can't have Padre Tino here to do it, but, as Padre says, "in dangerous times, everyone who believes is deputized." "…Then the boat song."

         Jack seems to like the sound of this part. "There's a special wedding song? Neat. How will I learn?"

         "I guess I teach it to you." It seems a little embarrassing to teach it to someone so it can be part of _our_ wedding, but I appreciate Jack's enthusiasm, and I do like it how he enjoys singing. …I always have, even before we'd met.

         "Okay, that'll do it for the words and the song," Jack ticks through the list he's created in his head. "How about the saltwater? I'm sure it comes from the ocean back in Four, but if I make some, will that be good enough?"

         "It's the meaning that counts," I allow it.

         "And this grass net."

         "If- if I have some time, I can make one. I mean, it's not exactly weaving, but that's my talent, remember? I'm good at handling plant fibers. …You just have to be okay with my picking some of your grass."

         "My lawn is your lawn, wife-to-be," Jack gestures grandiosely.

         "And you'll handle whatever stuff about rings you need?"

         "But of course. …How much time are you going to need for that net?"

         "I, uh, I don't know precisely. I've never made one by myself before." Though I've helped… "Also, it depends on how big we want it to be."

         "Well," Jack turns the problem around in his head, "Do you think you could do it all today?"

         "Today?"

         "I don't want to waste any more time. Let's get married today. After Reinhold's party. We can ask- who'll be there? -Pal. Pal and Silk can be our witnesses."

         "So this…" I'm still concerned. "This and the baby."

         "I promise," Jack takes my hands and looks me in the eye, mesmerizing me with the green of his gaze, "With Victor Affairs, with the Capitol-- I will take care of everything."

         I am counting on Jack. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

         The actual wedding preparations are another matter. I pick a whole basket of grass from his rooftop lawn and come inside to sit and work it while Jack darts about the apartment tending to this and that. It's tedious work, but the pleasant end goal helps me going. We use a longer sort of grass back home, which is easier to knot. I don't know how or where Jack and this baby and I will live, but, soon and sooner, I will be a mother and a wife, things I'm not sure I ever imagined I would be.

         When Jack and I arrive at Reinhold's party together, people tease us. "Do you kiss at all parties for new victors?" and "Getting a bit inseparable?" and such. The president's daughter shows up like last time and pries Jack away from me for the time being. I don't mind. There are people I can speak with separately anyway.

         When I give Reinhold further congratulations, I also manage to tell him he was right in a discrete manner. He understands immediately and grins: "I've still got it!" Raisin is there with Kayta and I wonder if they also realize the meaning of this exchange.

         I eat two slices of cake (different types) and hobnob with potential sponsor types. The president is giving Silk that skeevy leer I've only ever seen him break out for her. "Getting a bit pudgy, Miss Gaudet," he chides me when I approach. "Not the best look for you."

         "Pudgy?" Pal shakes his head. "Shallo, Mags." He looks at Silk, "We were looking forward to seeing Mags, huh? Well, we'll move on and free you up, Mr. President."

         The president doesn't seem exactly happy for Silk to go, but he doesn't stop any of us. "It's okay to say here?" Pal queries me.

         "Ah, one thing here and I'll tell you another later?" It makes me feel sort of cheeky, but since I want them to come along, I might as well take advantage of the more private environment later.

         "What is it, Mags?" Silk hooks her arms through mine and leans against me. She smells nice. Like violets.

         "I'd really love it if the two of you would come back to Jack's with me later if you can. For a, uh, private event."

         "It's a mystery, hmm?" Silk is hooked, "Can we, Pal?"

         "Of course." He seems curious, but even if he weren't and even if I weren't asking, I've never seen him deny Silk anything. The relationship between Hector and Gerik is one thing and the one between Teejay and Sunny is another and Kayta and Reinhold have yet another dynamic still, but with Pal and Silk I really see the capacity for an intense degree of mentor-victor love. Salvador will always remain in my memory specially I think, no matter how long I continue to mentor, since I can't help but feel he could've been that for me. Maybe someday, I hope some other tribute will be.

         "You'll keep track of us, right?" Pal confirms, "I don't want to be left behind and we'll need you for the ride."

         "I wouldn't dream of forgetting either of you," I insist.

         "Hey, cousin," Silk winks at me, "Before we spend any time apart, won't you dance with me?"

         I can't turn that offer down. We go about for two songs on the dance floor, though neither of us know officially what either of these songs are supposed to be answered with and just come up with something on our own. Pal claps for us anyway.

         The only other victors I find present are Hector and Gerik. Hector's getting more flak from Gerik over his girlfriend, who's apparently a pretty serious girlfriend by now. The talk about Reinhold's impromptu hook-up is also ongoing. As far as is reported, that girl in 2 was Reinhold's only sexual encounter in another district, but in both 7 and the Capitol his libido is…impressive. A clip of Kayta instructing him, on the steps of the Capitol party in his honor, to, "Please keep it in your pants," has easily become the most popular footage of 7's two victors together.

         Gerik is still kind of stunned about it, having spoken to the girl himself. Hector says he doesn't think Gerik believes in one-night stands: "Not even that they exist."

 

         The party concludes with a massive fireworks show. Jack shows back up while I'm watching with Pal and Silk and puts his arm around me.

         It's not until we are riding the quiet elevator up to his place at the top of that silent building that he springs our intent on our friends from 8. "We'd like the two of you to be our witnesses. We're getting married tonight, District Four style."

         "Mags, is this what you called me about?" Pal gapes.

         "No." The elevator reaches its destination was a small _ding_. "This is more impromptu than that."

         "I would've made you a dress…" Pal reaches over and begins fussing with my clothes.

         "This is so exciting!" Silk squeezes her hands into two tiny fists, "Congratulations! I'm honored you picked me! Ha ha, I almost wish I were the one getting married…!"

         "I'm sure someday you'll meet someone wonderful," Pal tells her.

         Jack agrees. "You would be one heck of a catch for anyone, Silk."

         "Says the man who's about to marry someone else," she giggles.

         "They're just those kind of people," Pal shrugs. He looks around the apartment. I think the lack of a specially decorated atmosphere is something of a disappointment to him. I idly wonder what's needed for a wedding in District 8 and if there's some part of it that Pal and Silk could haphazardly add. "In here?"

         "I thought of the roof, but it's got to be getting awfully cold at this hour and this time of year."

         "Brr," Silk shivers thinking about it and runs her hands over her arms. She's the most lightly clad one of all of us. "Inside, I think."

         "…I…I suppose it's different for everyone, but I think if they're going to do it, most women prefer to get pregnant after the wedding," I try to cushion the impact of the last surprise of the night with some joking.

         "…That's what you wanted to tell," Pal concludes correctly this time.

         "Oh, a baby…!" Silk gasps, "Is it okay if I hope it's a girl?"

         Both of them fuss over the idea and promise to sew lots of baby clothes. Although they're certainly aware of the presence of many hurdles regarding our situation, they are our friends and they understand how in the midst of this- all of this- we are making a moment of happiness, maybe one of not very many, so they don't mention those things. Once they've settled down again from all this additional excitement, Pal prompts us, "Are we ready? Now? Just like this?"

         "Uh, I wanna fix the bride's hair," Silk drags me off to the bathroom.

         "I'm your bridesmaid," Silk laughs to herself as she pulls my hair down from its ordinary buns and gets to re-arranging it. "And you have to look special."

         "'Step on a glass?'" I can hear Jack repeating to Pal, "Why would you do that?"

         "I know you'll do a great job," I tell Silk as I submit to her handling. For all that Silk wears her hair shorter than I do, she's impressively deft and creative when it comes to arranging mine. She braids and twists and pins until it's something beautiful and different, though still within the realm of what seems like me.

         "…You need flowers…" is her final regret.

         "This is more than good enough as is," I assure her.

         "Wear my scarf," she decides at the last moment, pulling off a flimsy piece of- well, she probably knows the fabric, but I don't- and cinching it around my waist.

         "You'll come to my wedding too, won't you? Someday?"

         "Of course, Silk. …And hopefully it won't be decided in one day and happen just like that with no new dress and no nice food and just two guests."

         Silk hugs me tight, "That would be good enough. More than good enough."

         We re-enter the men's line of sight. "Oh," Jack says, "Even prettier!"

         And he's only straightened his clothes a bit, but he's always handsome to me.

 

         Jack bows his head down a ways to help Pal put the net over him. Getting the other end flipped over me is considerably easier.

         Repeating after me, Jack says the words. We dip our fingers into the saltwater solution and touch it to one another's lips. He leans down and kisses me. I taste the salt.

         I start to sing the boat song, but find myself choking up. It's all too much. It's all too- I don't know.

         But Jack joins in and his voice is stronger even if he doesn't know the song as well, having just learned it today.

         And Pal picks it up, humming, and Silk claps her hands.

         Jack starts dancing and spins me slowly. It's as strange as a dream, but my dreams are rarely this good.

         When he stops, we're tangled in the net. Jack takes out a tiny envelope and pulls out a golden ring, smooth and simple. "I hope it fits. I know your hand is really small."

         It fits well enough. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

         "I chose the same for me." He lets me put the bigger version on his hand, and, indeed, they are a match.

 

         I am married. If I want, I am Margaret Umber now. I have a husband. A child is in the works. …And my "cousins" are here. A whole other family. My own kind?


	15. Part III, Chapter V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter requires an additional warning for off-screen rape (not graphically described) on top of the usual stuff.

         With one night of married life behind me, I return home as if, to outside eyes, there has been no change in my circumstances.

         When I tell Papa, he cries. "Oh, dear, so grown up now," he hugs me and then sniffles over our photos, as impromptu as the wedding itself. "You made that net?" he recognizes my handiwork, "Always such a do-it-yourselfer. And your 'cousins' were there…! Where is this?"

         "It's Jack's place."

         "Looks fancy." He examines each picture carefully, his hand shaking as he raises them up off the little table, one at a time. "I wish we could have him out here for a visit. I guess you two can't do what Kayta did though. I'd be happy to host all your colleagues for a few nights of celebrating." Next he wants to see the ring. I feel the twitch in his hand run up into my own arm as he gently holds my hand in his. Papa's wedding band is silver. "Very lovely," he states, "Simple is nice. And, from him, I'm sure it's real- not that it matters. The heart is what counts." He looks over the photographs once more. "Blue is a nice color for a wedding dress."

         We lean together on the couch, propping one another up. It's a happy thing, but it's not as sure a thing as it should be and both of us know that. It's exhausting.

         "He said," I tell Papa solemnly, "That he would take care of everything. All the official stuff."

         We sit in silence, then have a moment of being slightly startled as the television flicks on of its own accord, as it does for all required viewing (if you're already watching something else, it changes the channel). Reinhold is being feted one final time, back in District 7.

         "I know we won't get to live together," I speak up again about Jack and myself, "I don't have any expectations about that, but… I don't know. Maybe they'll just let it be. I mean, they might not want it known- in fact, what am I saying, they almost certainly won't, but- but as long as we do our jobs as victors and mentors… We can have that much. Our private lives. Our private marriage."

         "I hope so, dear. I hope so," Papa hugs me again.

         I can handle it, I think, the unconventional marriage. The baby troubles me more.

 

         For now, I try to resume my more or less ordinary life. There are still two people I can't keep such huge secrets from- 'Lito and Faline.

 

         "Is it like your birthday and you don't feel any different?" Faline inquires about being married.

         "Not quite," I'm happy to be able to tell her, "It's weird to think 'I'm Jack's wife,' I mean, but as much as I care about him, you know, he's sort of a tough read, and what do I know about love anyway? But he's the one who suggested it. I look at the ring on my hand and there it is- proof. I chose Jack and he chose me."

         "You look happy when you talk about him," Faline agrees. She asks if I'll let her try the ring on. It fits her too. She squeezes her eyes closed. "I'm imagining," she informs me by way of explanation.

         I say more or less the same thing as Pal told Silk. I am confident that it applies in this case as well. "You'll be a beautiful bride someday if you like."

         "Maybe I'll marry Reza," she muses. "Did you know he's already started saving money to buy his own fishing boat? He does odd jobs. He wants to be independent."

         "It's good that he's got aspirations." She passes me the ring and I put it back on. "There's something else too," I add. I feel my face growing hot. This part is embarrassing. I gesticulate and hope my meaning comes across.

         "Oh," says Faline, eyes wide, "A baby." Her hands are pulled tight against her own stomach as she echoes Jack's, "May I?" which I allow. She runs her hands over the lower portion of my shirt with a profound gentleness. "What is it like?" she wonders, awed.

         "Strange," I say, unable to tell such a nice girl, who might eventually want children of her own that, while I never have never thought anything but generic niceties about other people's pregnancies, I am finding my own weird and uncomfortable and a bit creepy, and even with the support of Papa and Jack and everyone, I'm still more terrified than not.

         I chalked up both the changes in size in my waist and my bust to my post-Games diet and lackadaisical exercise alongside my friends/casual trainees. I am hardly involved in the hard work I once assumed I would go on to for at least several years as a hand on Papa's fishing boat (most kids, after graduating school, without any special training or apprenticeship or a place at a family business lined up, work on a fishing boat for at least a while- I would've been one of the lucky ones to work on a family boat rather than a Capitol-owned operation). …I suppose knowing sooner wouldn't have made much a difference anyway.

         "I want to stay quiet about it for now though," I say, "About being married too. There are things that have to be worked out in the Capitol."

         "Sure," she acquiesces without hesitation, "Anyway, thank you. I'm happy that you told me."

         "It would've been really hard not to tell you," I answer honestly, "It just wouldn't have felt right at all."

         She hugs her arms around her legs. "I'm glad we're friends."

 

 

         I share the two pieces of news with 'Lito in the opposite order. I think both us are as red as ripe tomatoes as the information sinks in.

         I don't want to linger on it. "I'm not going to just let out that it's Jack's though," I press on. "My friend, um, Kayta, sort of advised me that way to start at least."

         "There's a benefit to not telling? Even though it's so obvious?" 'Lito muses.

         "Well, considering even our district escort thought I had slept with Jack at least weeks before I even got close to thinking about it, I can't say I think they all have the most accurate grasp on my proclivities," I snort.

         "Does that mean you're going to tell people I'm the boy back home?" he laughs. But when the joking ends, there's still a pleasant smile on his face. "It doesn't matter to me if it's Jack's baby. If you'll let me, I'll be the best uncle I can be," he promises and hugs me. He's so nice. "Have you thought about names?"

         "Not really."

         "You were too busy freaking out," he guesses wryly and is right on the mark.

         I get up and we walk along the Victors' Beach, not stopping at what I generally think of as its further end, but clambering along over the rocks. 'Lito keeps a cautious eye on my steps. He starts to hum a boat song and in my mind I follow along. I consider the, surely unanswerable, question, of what it is that makes the difference between my feelings for 'Lito and my feelings for Jack.

         I lean toward 'Lito's ear so he can hear me over the waves. "If good sense figured into it more-"

         He slips and I grab his hand. "O-oh, thanks." As he regains his balance, I let go. "Hmm, well, I'd hardly be one to disagree with you about the lack of sense involved."

         Compared to Jack's, his smile is so innocent. If there are any put-ons in 'Lito's behavior, I can't imagine they're conscious. He isn't an over thinker. He just is how he is.

         "I'm glad you're in love," he says.

         "We got married," I reply. Despite his statement immediately prior to this, he seems a bit dumbfounded. I'm afraid of taking out my ring while we're scrambling around on the rocks. We go back and sit on the sand and I pass it over to him.

         "Congratulations," 'Lito turns the pretty bit of metal around in his fingers, "So, why aren't you wearing it?"

         "Uh, I was a little concerned about wearing it around too much in public before Jack got everything sorted out. I mean, based on what we did and said, I should be legally married here- assuming there's no problem in relation to his different district citizenship- but I can't speak at all to what weight that carries in the Capitol."

         "Mrs. Margaret Umber," 'Lito pronounces solemnly and hands me back the ring.

         "Well, I didn't decide not hat yet. I didn't have a particularly long time to think it over."

         "Hey, he should take your name," 'Lito suggests an alternative I had not considered. "He could start a new trend in the Capitol!"

         This does happen in 4 sometimes, a husband taking his wife's name- usually in cases where a family name is attached to a certain business or when a man marries into a family with only daughters. Tomas Armain came by his surname this way, the same as Saigo Kanno's father. 'Lito has an older bother, so he's not the only heir to the Ortiz name. Would he, I wonder, want to be 'Lito Gaudet?

         "Jack Gaudet," I try out aloud.

         "Jack Gaudet," 'Lito repeats, "Hey, it's an honorable name. He should be proud to be a Gaudet."

         I can't say I know what he means by that. Only, I suppose that 'Lito is a very kind friend. "When I see him again, I'll tell him you said that," I decide. I am curious to see how Jack will take it, however much I'm only teasing. Is he happy, infamous Jack Umber? Could he accept that- become Jack Gaudet and take a step toward obscurity?

         "Does he know who I am?" 'Lito lays back on the sand and throws his arms up over his head.

         "He might not recognize you, but he knows you," I insist, "He knows you're my friend. You and Faline."

         "Aie! You tell this famous man about poor little me who scrapes the barnacles off boats for my Papi!"

         I lay down on the sand beside 'Lito. "Yes, I tell Jack about all my friends. And, anyway, who am I, but little me who jumped my height when Teacher Mia brought out the high-jumping mat and pole back when and made you notice me?"

         "Oh, I beg to differ," 'Lito contends.

         "And Jack isn't little, but he's not any different, 'Lito. He's just a lonely orphan who likes to tell jokes and eats up because he remembers how it felt to starve."

         'Lito's fingers brush through the sand to find and hold my hand. "I still have a hard time believing the right man for you doesn't own a boat," he laughs.

         "Small steps," I insist, "I'm not even sure yet that he know how to swim!"

         "You gotta ask him," he squeezes my hand, "That's kind of an important thing to know about a person!"

         I start to laugh at this and find myself laughing, more perhaps than the joke requires.

         "Come hang out with me on Sunday, when I'm off," 'Lito suggests, "Umm, if you like? People can see us- you know, just do what we'd usually do, but put on a little show?"

         "Sure," I agree, "That sounds good."

 

         On Sunday morning, when I arrive at the house/boat shop (the Ortizes live above the shop), first I can see 'Lito's brother shaking his head, "You should be flattered anyway. Wouldn't half the young guys in the district want that for one reason or another? She really likes you."

         "Yeah," 'Lito shrugs, though a touch of color is rising to his cheeks, "We're friends."

         "What a difference it made being brave enough to talk to her!"

         "Yeah, yeah."

         I come out a bit more into the open. I'm not trying to sneak up. I don't want it to seem like I'm purposely eavesdropping ('Lito is quiet, but Tiano is kind of loud, which doesn't make listening in on him all that difficult). "Hi," I announce myself, "I made you a hat." I hold it out with both hands. It's a bit…uneven, and rough around the edges, but I like the color of the fibers and am relatively sure it will fit him.

         "Oh, thank you," 'Lito tries it on immediately and it does fit.

         "I kind of want one," Tiano laughs.

         "I can make it. I have the time. How does the size of your head compare to 'Lito's?"

         "The same, more or less. Thanks, Mags." He leaves us to ourselves with a casual wave tossed up into the air.

         "Shall we go then?" 'Lito offers his arm and I accept. It's a bit transparent of a gesture as far as suggesting anything between us in my home district, and in and around Midtown, no less, where everyone knows who I am, but if Peacekeepers and the surveillance cameras at the Justice Building and anyone potential Capitolites in town on business see us together and can speak to the notion that who I am intimate with might not be so clear-cut, it can't hurt my case. We amble around town and buy some things for a picnic, which we decide to enjoy on the beach north of town.

         "Feeling any better about the baby?" 'Lito asks as we eat.

         "Not really. I'm still pretty terrified."

         "I borrowed a book from the library and started reading up." He gazes out at the tide. "I don't know. Maybe I'm being stupid, but I'm not too scared. You can do a million other things- how hard can it be for you to have a baby? And once you've done that part, practically everybody will be jumping up to give you a hand."

         Maybe a guy just can't understand. But he's still a wonderful friend. And he does make me laugh. "Everyone?" I chuckle, asking for me.

         "Yeah!" 'Lito is adamant, "Your papi and me and Faline and Estelle and Zeno- you know Zeno'll be pleased as punch to run around and do whatever you want him to do. There's not a person 'round town who doesn't love you."

         "Zeno," I say, "I never thought of Zeno." I've been too wrapped up in my own drama to get that far.

         "That kid loves you. …Not that I can blame him." I listen on though I've stopped eating. 'Lito notices. "…If you can eat a little more, I don't imagine it would be a bad thing."

         "Just think if the baby has an appetite like me."

         "You'll feed her plenty," 'Lito replies. He means it nicely, but it makes me think of how I will be able to provide better than most. How unfair it is. How many people can't- or can barely- feed the children they love and I didn't even want one. (It makes me think I should drop by Maria Atwater's place.)

         "You want it to be a girl?" I press 'Lito on this point.

         "Well, not that I'd have something against a boy," he backtracks, "But I live with Tiano and Papi and I work with almost all men… And I really like girls."

         "I don't suppose I can complain about that."

 

*****

 

         Maybe it's because I still haven't heard back from Jack about his taking care of things, but over a week has passed and I don't feel any more calm or secure about the baby growing inside me. It must show. When I set aside my baskets and cast an uneasy gaze down at my stomach, Papa sits down beside me and strokes my hair. "You should call your friends- your cousins," he suggests. "See what they're up to."

         I have been so self-absorbed lately. "Papa," I realize, "It's not your day off. Why are you home today?"

         "I let Mr. Kappe take the boat out instead. I've been worried about you. I didn't want you being her so many hours all alone."

         "I should be doing something with you then, since you're taking time off," I insist.

         I end up splitting the difference. Papa and I work together on a big basket I've been intending as a laundry hamper. We talk; we listen to a musical program on television. Afterward, I do call up Pal (it's his number I know, not Silk's), but Silk is present too and we have a pleasant enough three-way conversation.

         They're headed into the Capitol tomorrow because… Well, pretty much because Silk is still so popular, I think. As much focus as there is on Reinhold as the newest victor, they're of different types, and probably have different fan bases, so she's stayed on peoples' minds. For this event, there's meant to be some overlap appeal. Silk and Pal are going to do an on-air demonstration of their doll-making (altering, technically, I think, since they don't start completely from scratch) by making Reinhold, who will also be on set in person to model and offer his own input on the project.

         "The president asked me to do it," Silk laughs, "Isn't that sort of funny? He called me up himself."

         "Jack thinks you're his new favorite," I remark. I do think he has a point with that. …I suppose I'm glad that it isn't me though. I'd be terrified if the president called my house.

         "Jack would know…" Pal mumbles in the background.

         "Miss Star," Silk goes on, "Now she just adores Jack. …They've even gone on dates, haven't they? Gosh…I wonder what'll she say…" Silk doesn't have to mention about what. I know.

         …I certainly didn't waste much time wondering what the president's daughter would think about it though. On reflection, it seems to me that Jack has gone on dates here and there with all sorts, but I can't remember them as anything more the blips on his social calendar-- not that prior to meeting Jack myself, I associated him with anyone in particular, but in retrospect, I can recall how he appeared in association with Star or with Sophie Varen on and off for years (though with Sophie, it might have been merely a business association of sorts that grew into friendship).

         "I wouldn't speculate," Pal coughs.

         "Well," I change the subject back to their upcoming television appearance, "I'm really looking forward to seeing you on. I'll make sure that I catch it."

         "The day after tomorrow," Silk makes sure that I remember, "Eleven o'clock Capitol time."

         "I'll watch," I promise.

         "I swear, Jack's gonna show up if he's in town when he sees we've brought the whole set so far with us," Pal adds, "He's not scheduled in, but I apologize to you in advance, Mags, if he gets in and says anything embarrassing. You know I can't do anything about him…"

         Leave it to Pal to be apologetic before the fact. "I know," I let me smile leak into my tone, "None of us can do anything about him- unfortunately, sometimes."

         "Bye-bye," Silk chirps.

         "Have fun in the Capitol. Good-bye for now."

 

         Papa is quick to notice the improvement in my mood after talking to them. "Cousins did it, huh?" he cocks an eyebrow.

         "And how!" I exaggerate my happiness.

         We laugh.

 

 

Faline comes by with a lop-sided little cake in a basket.

         "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" I ask.

         "I ditched," she shrugs, "I don't usually. …I knew there wasn't anything important going on." The way she goes online this, I must look terribly stern or skeptical (and, if she would only recall, it's not like I exactly completed my education to its fullest extent). "Anyway," Faline carries on, "I brought you cake. …And I'm your best friend. You can't get me in trouble."

         I respond with an exaggerated sigh, "Well, seeing as you just called me your best friend, I suppose there's no getting around it. Come on in. Our buddies from District Eight are going to be on TV."

         "What for?"

         "Just general publicity, I guess."

         We sit down on the couch and catch the end of a cooking program. Faline tells me about the cake she made. "Mrs. Barrow- that's our neighbor- she gave me some strawberry preserves as payment for babysitting her son and I though, wow, you'd be surprised to eat a strawberry cake at the end of the year." She pauses, "…Assuming you haven't eaten any strawberries recently in the Capitol, that is."

         "I haven't."

         "Yeah, so, the Barrow boy asks me a million questions about our club. I think he's too little to join up, but, I don't know… It's nice that there's someone still enthused about it."

         "Safi and Vi are coming just because I pay for sandwiches, right?" I meet this wryly.

         "No," Faline pouts, "Not just that. Vi has a lot of tesserae, so she figures it can't hurt."

 

         The segment I was awaiting comes on. Silk and Pal work on their project, explaining their process. Reinhold asks questions like, "How will you do my sideburns?" and they answer as they go ("Paint them on with a very tiny brush."). Reinhold is pretty cheeky, but I think everyone involved expects it of him. I think Silk appreciates the way he says slightly shocking things and makes her erupt into embarrassed laughter. "Didn't think of that, right?" he comments after many of his jibes.

         The Reinhold doll turns out well, as if anyone would expect otherwise from such careful craftspeople. Reinhold perches the doll on his shoulder and poses with and talks to it. "Is that your conscious there?" Pal tries to joke as he picks up their various tools and returns them to the sewing kit.

         Silk is going about, collecting the other dolls from the hosts of the program, and at the very tail end of things, Jack does make an appearance. "I don't know," he laughs, "When I see little Reinhold, it's not your conscience that I start thinking of."

         They mock-fight a bit, maybe to give Pal and Silk more time to pack up, and then it's on to the next segment, as the hosts thank 8's victors once more. Reinhold and Jack sit down with the hosts at their semi-circular table and get into some celebrity relationship chatter. Reinhold isn't seeing anyone special. "I'm sure I'll know when I meet her though," he smiles.

         "They say there's someone out there for everyone, right?" the female host agrees.

         "Or more than one someone," her male counterpart quips.

         "When's the next time we're gonna see you on some excursion with your girlfriend, Jack?" Reinhold asks, sounding genuinely interested.

         "Miss Star or Miss Mags?" the male host inquires.

         Jack doesn't interject, allowing everyone else to continue on around him, but his eyes flit about, reading their faces and a hint of color tinges his cheeks.

         "Mags," Reinhold is unequivocal, "Sure, Jack sees Miss Star plenty, but Mags is his girlfriend," he turns to Jack, "Right?"

         "Oh," Jack smiles…a different sort of smile than usual- he doesn't show any teeth, "Of course."

         "'Of course,'" Faline echoes him, "Wow, he sure can play it cool- talking like that about his wife!"

         I pick up her basket with the cake in it, "I have some leftover vegetables we cooked last night. I was thinking about mixing them with some noodles? It can be our lunch."

         "You don't want to watch him?" Faline turns around and watches as I head into the kitchen.

         "It makes me nervous," I admit, "I don't know…things are so un…solved? Unsettled, I guess, at this point."

         She starts to get up. "No," I wave her back down, "It's okay if you want to watch it. All I've got to do is boil some water and get out some plates. It's not going to be difficult."

         "If you insist," Faline relents and slips back down to her barely vacated spot on the couch, her round eyes returning to their earlier focus on the screen. Reinhold is tapping on that rounded table incessantly.

 

         The 'club' meets up that afternoon. The water is a bit on the rough side, but we swim anyway.

         I field a few exceedingly polite remarks about my…physical condition (I get the impression that everyone has been given advance notice about it by…'Lito? Faline?), made more apparent than in ordinary circumstances by the layers I shed to swim. Estelle says that she had wondered, "If maybe… But," she flushes, "It was none of my business."

         Zeno speaks to his great love of babies. Reza's blue eyes widen and hint at a slight bewilderment.

         In any case, I haven't felt sick today and after a morning of taking it easy, I welcome a bit of exercise.

         Things proceed in an ordinary fashion. If anyone speaks to Faline's having skipped school that day, I don't overhear them. Estelle hangs about after everyone but Faline has gone to be discreet about her interest (because of her nursing studies, she insists). "Woah," she says when I let her touch me, "I, uh, I guess I wonder what it's like."

         "I don't think I'm the best one to say," I shake my head.

         "Well, there are all sorts of experiences, right? Life's not one size fits all. …You'll let me help, right? I did help with a birth before- just once, but, um, I didn't get in the way or mess anything up or anything!"

         " _Es_ -telle!" Faline tries to draw her attention to the fact that this is not exactly a glowing self-endorsement, but I laugh it off. Of course she can help. What will it hurt, after all?

         After a bit of jockeying about who should walk who home, I accompany Estelle and Faline back to the mainland. I've just turned back around when I hear them laughing. "Hey, Mags!" yells Papa, hurrying past the two girls to cross the shallows.

         Faline cups her hands around her mouth: "You got an escort anyway!"

         Papa catches up to me. He takes my hand and we walk side by side. "I made too many noodles back at lunch," I tell him, "How's that sound for dinner?"

         "Wonderful."

         "It was good to be back at sea?"

         "It has its charms. But, anywhere is fine to be if being there means I'm not too concerned about you."

         I don't want him to be so worried. I should be able to handle this. I put extra effort into the putting up a good front. Maybe it works and maybe I just get what I'm hoping for as a result of other factors. Papa seems relaxed. He also plans to go out on the boat again tomorrow.

         We both turn in early.

 

         I awake in the morning to the gentle murmur of the television- it's not loud, but enough that I can hear it, having left the door to my bedroom somewhat ajar the night before. Maybe there was some kind of presidential announcement? The things turn themselves on for required programming in the Capitol like everywhere else.

         Yes, it is the TV…

         I progress downstairs and look at the news broadcast and realize what I am seeing I am covered in a cold sweat. I want to scream and yet no sound escapes my lips. I pick up the phone, trembling, and dial Jack.

         "Hello," he answers, somewhat tentative, "Jack Umber speaking."

         "Jack…" is all I can manage.

         Onscreen a reporter at the television station is dispassionately explaining how Silk's body was found around two in the morning down an alleyway. At the roped off scene of the crime I can still see stains of blood, though her body has already been moved. Fans have gathered along the sidewalk, crying maudlin tears and creating a haphazard mound of flowers and other tokens dedicated to the well-loved victor.

         She was raped and murdered. I am chilled to the bone to hear it. Stabbed four times in the chest, though they speak of evidence that she fought back. Yes, a victor would. They say the damage she must have done to her attacker will help the authorities in their search to identify the culprit.

         I am still on the line with Jack, though I realize I have not said anything for a long time. If Jack has said anything else, I haven't even heard. I listen and can hear his breathing. Something important has occurred to me- she wasn't in the Capitol for this engagement alone: "…where's Pal?"

         "Victor Wing of the hospital. They thought he needed to be sedated."

         "…will they let me come there?" I ask. The tears are starting, bubbling up fierce and warm, streaking down my face.

         "They'll want us all, I'm sure. Call in to Victor Affairs- I'm sure they're arranging all sorts of things. A funeral. New security precautions," Jack says, "Let me know when you'll get here and I'll come to meet you." Just the sound of his voice is comforting- he sounds strong, secure.

 

         They would let me go out earlier, but I don't want to leave before Papa comes into harbor. I pack for my trip, then, finding myself with so much time to fill, make up a meal in advance for his dinner.

         Around the hour he should be back, I head to the docks to meet him. I note various people I pass shooting me strained and thoughtful looks. They have heard the shocking news, but, in a world filled with pain and premature death, how should they react to it? Some must wonder what I'm thinking. For others, perhaps there's relief that at least the murdered victor isn't theirs.

         Odair's ship comes in early. The crew stream out one bit at a time. They nod or tip their caps to me. …And then there's the young Captain Odair himself. He takes off his cap as he approaches me. "Heard over the radio on the way in," he holds the hat to his chest, "My condolences. She might not have been one of ours, but she was one of yours."

         "Thank you," I accept his kindness.

         "Keep your chin above water," he pokes my shoulder, the safest teasing touch he feels he can give his district's victor.

         Thanks," I repeat myself.

         I expect Liam Odair to go on his way now, but he doesn't. "Don't know if you've heard, but they're gossiping on TV now. They've got pictures of you they're comparing. You know how they like to say someone is getting fat…but maybe you're not getting fat…?"

         "I…didn't know that they were saying," I answer carefully, "But I know."

         Liam nods. "Your man is giving you away." I think he means to warn me. "Not with his words, but you see it in his face. He didn't used to tense up like that."

         "What do you mean, Liam?"

         "I don't know. Maybe it's not as obvious as I think it was. He's a man with something to lose now. He wasn't before."

         I look down at my feet in my battered leather sandals. I can't even devote all of myself to my sadness for Silk and worries about Pal. I have to keep worrying about that.

         Papa shows up while we're still standing there. He doesn't even wait for the boat to be all the way properly moored, just hops over the side and rushes over to me. "Mags!" Some of his crewmen watch him in his hurry, rather than keeping their full focus on their work.

         "Papa-"

         He catches his breath. "Ah, hello, Mr. Odair."

         "Mr. Gaudet." Liam puts his cap back on and leaves us. Either he has nothing more to say, or there's nothing else he wants to say in front of my father. Liam and I are not close acquaintances, but there isn't any of the iffiness between us either that still keeps Papa somewhat divided from many in town.

         "I heard," Papa says simply. He ensnares me in a wonderfully solid hug.

         It feels good. It makes me start to cry again. "I'm going," I tell him, "I'm going. I made you dinner."

         But I don't make a move to leave. I just stay there crying in Papa's arms, until up walks Mr. Kappe. "I'll give ya a ride," he offers, "To the station."

         He has a beat-up old motorbike. "Okay," I agree, wiping my fingers across my tear-wet face.

         "Be careful, dear," Papa sends me off, "See you soon. I love you."

         "I love you too."

 

         I hold tight to Mr. Kappe as we zip through town and off to the train station.

         "People are scary," he comments after I thank him, "…The Games aren't much at all compared to what some people'll do all on their own without the government putting it to them do or die."

         "Yeah," I agree. What else can I say?

         "When the catch that person, they're gonna do much worse than string him up on the scaffold, I imagine. They weren't only a criminal- they deprived the president of someone he seemed to personally enjoy very much."

         "I thought that too."

         A train leaves the station, but it's not the one for me. It's headed further out rather than back to the Capitol.

         "You don't have to wait here with me…" I feel sort of awkward standing on the platform with my father's first mate, but I'm not sure- maybe he isn't going to go without my saying something- maybe he thinks that would be rude.

         "It's fine," he replies.

         He stays with me until I'm off. Peering discreetly through one of the train's windows, I can see him driving away back toward town before we pull away.

 

         I make the trip dyed dark with my solitary thoughts.

 

         But Jack meets me as he promised, his strong arms enfolding me. His grip shifts and loosens, but he never lets go of me completely until we're safely locked up in his apartment. And then I burst out crying all over again about poor, poor Silk and there's nothing either of us can do, so I just want him to hold me again.

         "…Jack-" I turn to him and he acquiesces.

 

         Maybe it's not much time after all, but it feels like we stay like that for a long time to me. Jack is warm and steady. I wish I felt more comforted.

         Eventually he tries to engage me in more ordinary conversation, but I can't quite do it. So many potential subjects lead me straight back to Silk, to Pal, to the shock and sadness of the moment. I can't turn my thoughts off.

         I ask if we might be able to go see Pal, but Jack, anticipating this desire of mine, tells me access to him is being pretty strictly controlled (although he is also under tight surveillance- potential suicide watch?).

         His phone rings and he goes to answers it. "…Yeah? Tomorrow? No, she's here; I'll tell her. Yes. …No need, we'll be there." Hanging up, he heaves a sigh. "They've called in all our ranks to remember her on the studio set tomorrow. They're going to cobble something together. Don't worry- they don't expect us to go on live at least."

        

        

         I have had a miniature taste of a happy (if anxious with unknowns) life beside my husband and now I have a taste of a sadder (and still anxious) one.

         Jack orders dinner to be delivered to his pace, and though he'd gladly get me any cuisine the Capitol had to offer, I can't summon much appetite. Smaller meals seem easier on my stomach anyway.

         We interact quietly as the evening passes.

         I sit in bed and Jack brushes my hair, a wisp of a smile curling across his lips, his pleasure or amusement at how wavy my hair can be (and the hours spent twisted up exacerbate this) undiminished from the first time he encountered it.

         Here, in the privacy of his apartment, we both wear our wedding rings. Jack puts his left hand across my stomach and I set my own alongside it, looking at our more or less identical bands. Making a set once more.

         He goes to sleep much faster than I do. I listen to his heartbeat. Predictable. Calm.

         Jack, have you been worrying the way I have? Or do you think you have things figured out?

 

         I sort of wish I would dream about Silk (would that provide me with some sort of closure? maybe not). But I don't. I'm not sure I've ever dreamed about her.

 

         I wake up alone, with my stomach feeling touchy. Isn't that supposed to stop at some point? Or am I just unlucky? I guess I don't know enough to say.

         Is Jack out? Did he have a commitment to the studio or something? I can't remember what days he's there. …sometimes there are extra ones anyway.

         I lay still and say prayers. At least I can reasonably tell myself that Silk has her peace. …Pal, on the other hand… Surely he can use every bit of good will and support we have to spare.

         Not much later, Jack's voice intrudes into my thoughts. "Yeah, yeah, after that." He's talking to someone who isn't here- I can't hear any answer to his words- he must be on the phone. "This is important. So afterward. Silk comes first."

         He comes into the bedroom, all neatly coiffed and dressed in black. I'm certain he's been out. He smiles at me. "Good morning, Mags."

         "Good morning. I wondered where you were, Jack…"

         "I was taking care of some business." He sits down on the bed. "Sorry, I forget that even lazy fisher-people tend to wake up early." I grumble out a token complaint about 'lazy' (I am, actually, when it comes to getting up- being a victor's only a job that requires you to get up early about two weeks out of the whole year), but it's not so much out of annoyance as to show him I can still laugh if he says those things to me.

         He strokes my hair; then, seeming to remember something, reaches a hand into his pocket and pulls out his wedding ring. He slips it back on. "Would you like some breakfast?"

         "Something tiny maybe… I'm not sure how much I can eat."

         "I will make you something tiny then!" Jack leans down and kisses my forehead. "Don't get up."

         So I don't. Though I do adjust the pillows and bit up a bit more. I slept pretty well after my slow start (I remember during the Thirteenth Games how Pal burned his candle at both ends to fight for and watch over Silk. He barely slept then. He must not be sleeping now).

         Jack returns with a cup of tea in one hand and a tiny plate in the other. "It's not too strong or bitter," he promises and those words seem to hold up upon sipping it. He angles the plate so I can see what's he's made: a piece of ordinary, pale, soft Capitol bread smeared with strawberry jam- it's cut into a heart.

         "Oh, Jack!" I'm surprised, "That's so cute!"

         He looks perfectly pleased by my response and tries not to make it too awkward sitting with me and more or less watching me eat. "I asked Sophie to look up some information for me about babies and such… Not that… Well, so I can be informed, I suppose."

         "Don't you think Sophie is a little busy with her own work to be your errand girl?" I suggest, though I couch my accusation in a light tone.

         "I can't look it up or people will get ideas," he holds up his hands, "Anyway, Sophie's my friend. We do what we can to look out for each other."

         "I am glad you have a friend…"

         "Entertaining, in One, is something of a…service industry. There are a lot of demands on someone like Sophie, who appears on official Capitol-aired programing." He seems thoughtful about this, but as I lick a dab of jam off my hand, he laughs, "So that was perfect then!"

         "Thank you." I get embarrassed and look down. "But it was."

         "Okay then!" he hops to his feet, "I'm assuming you're feeling a bit better since you were able to eat. I have an outfit for you- I picked it up from the studio while I was out. I wasn't sure if you'd brought anything dark-colored on your own and they're going with the funereal look here."

         "Umm, all right."

         I get cleaned up and dressed. If they're not happy with how I look, it's not like the people at the studio won't hesitate to change me around. …it would be better though, if they only work on my hair and makeup. I can hide my secrets beneath these clothes still. …I think.

         "Shall we?" Jack offers me his arm.

         "I guess." He's already taken off his wedding ring. I follow suit.

         We don't have far to travel.

         In the back rooms of the building, we're split up. Jack's already been worked on and will only need the most minor of touch-ups. I, on the other hand, have to have my hair re-done apparently. Because they're fixing it up back into the exact same style that I came with it done in, I can't say I fully fathom this decision, but it's not my place to question it.

         I fidget anxiously. I don't know the people who make me up- they're not the usual ones who work on the Games commentary broadcasts alongside Jack and they don't have any connection to my district's style team either. They don't chat much and they don't waste time. These are both good things.

         I hurry to reunite with Jack. I don't touch him or anything when I do, but I stand near to him, with the closeness even only the public portion of our relationship allows. I feel bothered, but it's not like there's anything surprising about that considering the situation.

         "I learned a new song," Jack tells me.

         Maybe it's to soothe me. It might be just my personality or it might be that I talked with and liked Silk more than he did, but her horribly sad death eats away at me. "Yeah?" I resist the urge to put my hand on my stomach. I don't want to draw people's attention to it. There doesn't seem to be anything too obvious about it (making me lucky in this regard, I suppose) and not everyone is as…apparently knowledgeable on the subject as Reinhold. The people on TV can talk and talk however they like- there's plenty of room for my denials to float in this murky sea of speculation.

         "It's a good one," he promises.

         Well, I don't doubt that part. I will always smile when Jack sings, no matter the circumstance. …but that's not enough to get me past all the bad things now.

         We victors have been gathered up to be part of the public mourning for the first loss among our own and are, accordingly, dressed up in colors solemn and dark. Everyone is here but Pal, who is still heavily drugged, Sunny (the last one to see him) informs me. "It's for the best," Teejay offers an opinion that he seems somewhat well positioned to give.

         Silk will be buried in 8, not the Capitol (they don't bury bodies, I hear, in the Capitol, but I'm not sure what practice exactly they favor), but our assembly is like a mock funeral.

         "They're not going to drag him out for this joke anyway?" Luna wonders, "If that's the case, they're letting him off a bit easier than I expected."

         "He blames himself, you know," Sunny turns to her, "Isn't that worse than anything left they could do or say to him?"

         Luna bites her lip. When she releases it, along with a long breath, she speaks against this notion. "Don't we all do that? Well, it wasn't his fault. And, for what it's worth, if he shows up, I'll tell him that again myself. There was nothing he could do but maybe delay it a little while longer. This is what they've always wanted- to eat us alive- and they started with her."

         Reinhold starts to speak up to interject a comment of his own, but Luna is, characteristically, swift and merciless. "I hope you're next."

         Reinhold's mouth drops open and he looks from Luna over to Kayta, but his mentor doesn't speak up to defend him, just sort of stretches and tips his head to the side. Who here has it in them to fight today?

         A production assistant gets us all set up and ordered the way they want for the program. Some of the men are left standing, but the other girls and I get to sit. Shy forces a smile onto her face as someone positions her down beside me.

         Someone else brings Pal in. "So much for that," Luna mutters.

         "Ohhh," I can't stifle my small exclamation in time. He looks so pale and tired and utterly miserable.

         A young woman with a makeup kit tries to fix him up, straightening his hair and brushing some color onto his cheeks, but he fusses unhappily in return, trying to push her away. Let the Capitol see the truth of his mourning. Let the Capitol look on the unhappy, unpainted face of those bereft. They know of death too, in the Capitol, as much as they try to deny it and look away.

         Jack intercedes on Pal's behalf. "Just leave him like that. It's good enough. He'll be fine."

         The young woman, probably only following the directions of someone higher up the programming chain of command, backs off reluctantly. Sunny calls her over to touch up both of 6's victors, a courtesy of giving her something else to do instead.

         The cameramen take pictures of us all gathered together like this, everyone some combination of quiet, stoic, sad, or helpless. Principa- I don't remember her last name- one of the women anchors of the morning show Jack runs his usual segment on, comes on, dressed in some tight garment covered in black feathers, and interviews us for material to add to the highlight reel of prior footage they have of Silk. They want everyone to talk about Silk- something we remember about her, something shared between just the two of us, something we hoped would happen that never will now.

         Some of us are easier to coax words from than others. Teejay is unexpectedly talkative, though not all of his sentences cohere together quite as elegantly as the producers of the programming might like- I have a feeling that he'll only air with the help of some significant editing. But, oh, the kind things he says- of how kind she was to him and how talking to her reminded him of the days when he was alive, of the things he did with his sister after his victory but before her reaping, and how they played a fortune-telling game when she was on her Tour stop in 6.

         He's only about three words into his first statement before Pal starts shaking, tears running down his face. I want to get up and hold him, offer what minuscule comfort I can, but I'm not sure they'll let me.

         Beto is the closest to Pal. I see his hand tremble as he reaches out, but his fingers don't retreat. He grasps Pal's shoulder and holds on, firm.

         Everyone manages to say something thoughtful. From Gerik to Luna to Beto to Emmy (though I'm not sure Emmy understands what the actual cause and situation were of Silk's death- but if no one impressed the truth upon her, I assume they thought it was better that she didn't know).

         By the time I've finished speaking, I'm crying too, and I have already forgotten more than the gist of what I said.

         Ms. Principa tears up a few times at what the victors have to say, but she always manages to bat them back down. Sunny, Teejay, and Hector fare more closely to how I do, hardly immune to all this pain and regret and emotion.

         They shouldn't have tried to save Pal for last. He is inconsolable.

         But this isn't airing live. I'm sure they'll think of something.

         Programming staff thank everyone politely for their time and pass out tissues where needed. Sunny gently uses a handkerchief to wipe off Teejay's face. Hector loudly blows his nose. Luna discreetly wipes her eyes and leaves in the wake of Ferdinand, escorting Emmy as usual.

         Kayta punches Reinhold in the arm and they let loose at one another with a string of incomprehensible District 7 curses before stalking off to leave separately.

         "What was that about?" Shy wonders.

         "Continuation of earlier," Gerik supplies, "They were having it out before you got here about it. Not that Kayta blamed him, really, but that Reinhold being such a horndog got the pervs in the Capitol all worked up. You know, here was a victor who messed around. A male victor messing around with Capitol women. I mean, it's not like we don't know what sort of people paid to-" Gerik's eyes drift down to land on Pal. His face pales several distinct shades.

         "…and I was jealous," Beto admits, softly to Pal, "I hope you can forgive me for being jealous."

         "Yes," Pal speaks at last and touches Beto, his voice small and tight and wavering, "Yes, I can. I do. If things had gone that way for you instead of me, I would've felt the same."

         The eyes of everyone remaining fall on Pal, who rises to his feet, though not without a bit of wavering that gets Gerik tentatively poised to reach out and grab or steady him. "Pal, maybe you-" Sunny starts.

         "I have to say," he insists, choking at another half-realized sob, "I think you have to know."

         "Go on," Jack, who has been very quiet aside from when he's been spoken to directly.

         "Everyone kept asking," Pal whispers, "But I said she wasn't for sale. Not for any price. I- I made so many promises to save her, but none of them were meant to tie her to anyone or anything after her Games. It was just that she would be there- for them to see. …Wouldn't that be enough? And I made sure they saw her. Little portioned glimpses. We went on TV. We accepted the invitations. We went where people could see us. I was willing to sell myself to save her- whatever people would buy- my work, my dignity, anything. I thought they would stop, but they kept on asking. She wasn't for sale."

         So someone took what they couldn't buy.

         I wonder what kind of horrible person would do such a thing. I wonder if they will catch him. I wonder again what will happen to him if they do.

         "It didn't matter what I said, did it?" Pal begins to choke and sputter, "I sold her myself, didn't I? I sold her myself!"

         He's hysterical. "Pal," Beto tries to calm him with words, "Pal, you would never have done that. You would never have given them the smallest bit of ground on which to stand and claim belief in such a gift to them." But it doesn't seem to reach him in any meaningful way. When Gerik tries to touch him, Pal swats his hand away. I doubt I am the only one who thinks of Pal, generally, as sweet and gentle, but Pal is just like the rest of us. They called him "the fiend with the needle." Pal has killed people too.

         He would've done it again for her, I'm sure. He would do it now if it would make a difference.

         Jack steps around me and grabs Pal's arm, more insistent than Gerik's attempt. "Take a deep breath," Jack commands him, "You're not thinking straight and if you can't get yourself under control, what do you think they'll do to you?"

         "Jack," Pal tries to yank his arm away, but can't manage it, "You- You're no help at all! You're as bad as any of them!"

         A- a guard for the television studio, I think- intercedes and carefully removes Pal from Jack's grasp, but continues to use a small bit of force in restraining him. The District 8 escort, with smudgy mascara, draws nearer, along with someone who must be their Victor Affairs liaison, who doesn't look one bit pleased with any of this. "I think he needs some time alone," the escort says.

         The Victor Affairs liaison is considerably more blunt, "He needs more sedatives."

         Pal's gaze stills for a moment as his eyes find mine. "Mags." No one can deny that it's me he means to address, "Watch yourself. Watch yourself carefully or you'll be just like me."

         "Come on, Pal," the escort tries to speak soothingly, "Let's go back to where you can have some peace and quiet. I'm so sorry they forced you to come out here. I knew there was no way you could be the slightest bit ready for something like this so soon, but, you know, barely anyone has a shred of patience around here."

         And the liaison adds something that I don't quite catch, because it's immediately swallowed up by more furious shouting. Whatever it was, it came from a person with a much weaker understanding of 8's remaining victor, and he won't let it stand for a moment. "I loved her!" Pal shrieks, aquiver with impotent rage as they drag him away (it is to our various Capitol handlers' advantage that it is someone Pal's size engaged in this eruption of emotion and not someone Hector or Gerik's), "I loved her and this--!!"

         What you love will destroy you.

         A tremor runs through me. A shiver, cold with fear. What will happen to Pal now? Will he ever be the same? …is there anything I can do for him but wait and see? Will Silk's death be his own?

         I turn around. Shy is already at a back entrance, trying to surreptitiously escape from all this mess, along with Gerik and Hector- they look more apologetic about their decision to slip out than Shy does. She'll probably head straight home to Mac to tell the tale of the fearful emotions she was privy to here.

         "We, um," Sunny stutters, "W-we have to go, right, Teejay?"

         "You're looking after me," he shrugs.

         "Bye Mags…Beto…Jack," she takes Teejay's arm and leads him away through the front.

         Nar breaks away from the throng of TV programming and victor-associated Capitolites buzzing busily around the floor to join us- the three remaining victors in the room. "Can I entice any of the three of you with an offer of a meal?" He raises one languid eyebrow, "I hear there's something going on with you that Victor Affairs should know about?"

         "Not with me," Beto shakes his head.

         "Beto," I try to invite him, "You can eat with us if you like." I'm feeling nervous. If Beto will come, things will…have to stay a certain amount calm, right? Carry on within certain logical parameters. …And there it was too- we all just saw it- a flicker of his kindness, held back so ordinarily in reserve.

         What do I mean by these thoughts? Am I asking for Beto to come along and protect me?

         The corner of his lips twitch as he considers my offer. When whatever internal calculations he makes are over his answer comes out a negative: "I'm not hungry. Though the offer is appreciated, I would prefer to pass this time." He holds his hand out to me, "Mags."

         I take it and receive a stiff shake in return.

         "Good evening." We part. He doesn't give his hand to Jack or Nar, but only tips his head, once toward each of them.

 

         Nar leads us along and we meet up with District 1's Victor Affairs liaison, Diluc, at the doorway. Tall and lanky, he leans up against the frame of the open door. "Hey," he says laconically, falling into step with us. Jack smiles at him. I follow his lead because it's only polite.

         "I'm not really all that hungry," I admit, though, all things considered Nar's odds would usually lean in favor of my ability (and desire) to eat.

         "Maybe you'll change your mind when you smell the food there," Nar counters cheerfully, "It's pretty aromatic."

         I make a noncommittal sound. Some smells bother me these days that never caused me any trouble before. I'm feeling much too touchy, but there's not a lot I can do about it.

         The four of us are seated in a private room of the restaurant, probably the sort that can be reserved for parties. I guess two victors and two agents of the Department of Victor Affairs can't just sit casually out in public as such big, tumultuous news surrounds our cohort. All the times I've gone out in the Capitol, people have been pretty neutral to nice toward me.

         "It's on us," Diluc tells me, "It's a business meeting, so consider it on Victor Affairs' tab."

         I'm thirsty at least. I order a sort of elaborate iced tea with fruit slices floating in it.

         "So, Jack," Diluc says, idly stirring his cherry-filled cocktail (I feel like I can practically smell the alcohol coming off of it from across the table), "What are we working with today?"

         "I got married," Jack says bluntly.

         Understandably, both the liaisons look at me. What else am I here for? Moral support?

         A dangerous silence engulfs our table.

         "Well," Jack insists, "Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

         The Capitol men remain very silent. "Does…anyone know about this?" Diluc asks carefully.

         "It was a properly witnessed District Four style wedding," Jack reaches over and takes my hand. Well, that spells that out then. "Pal and Silk were both present."

         "Silk…" Diluc considers this, "And Pal."

         I start to grip Jack's hand more tightly. For all that you can see her in our pictures, that she clapped and smiled and fixed me hair, Silk can't vouch for our vows anymore. And, in Pal's state, what weight will be ascribed to his words if he does?

         "That…is kind of complicated, Jack," Diluc frowns.

         "You've got to go through the proper channels…" Nar says, sort of gaping.

         "You may not like it," says Jack, "But it isn't actually illegal. And, look, I didn't just spring it on an unsuspecting public- I'm telling you first so you can have some control over how we present it."

         "This…it's going to take some working out, Jack."

         Jack's smile is toothless and intent. He is undaunted by the prospect of difficulty here. We didn't have to get married. His vows are proof of his pledge to make this work.

         It goes without saying that we couldn't have asked for permission beforehand. It wouldn't have been granted. There is Jack's gambit: "We're already married- it's too late to stop it. Now let's play ball with that."

         "We're going to have to take this back to the department head, Jack," Diluc continues, "I hope you don't expect us to get it all hashed out here and now."

         "No," Jack's tone is light, but there's a hint of threat threaded through it all the same, "Take your time. I know it's a lot to deal with all at once, particularly with the very unfortunate matter of our late friend Silk sending everyone rushing around and readjusting security protocols." He looks at me and the sharpness softens, "It's not like we'll be getting any less married in the meantime."

         For all my unease, he really is sweet and I smile back sort of wryly.

         "Just keep it to yourself in the meantime," Diluc shakes his head. "Keep it off the television and out of the studios."

         "…That means you, Jack," Nar interjects.

         Jack makes a funny face and comically wiggles his eyebrows. "Oh, you already know I'm good at keeping secrets," he avers.

         "You'd have been shipped back to One more or less permanently years ago if you weren't," Diluc agrees more jovially than the manner in which his earlier remarks were made. He doesn't trust Jack not to do something stupid, but keeping quiet about it is another matter (what other things does Jack know…).

         "Let's order something," Nar shrugs and beckons a waiter over.

         I feel like I haven't had time to make up my mind as to whether I want to eat or not, let alone what they serve here that I might like. I hurriedly flip through a menu while Nar and Diluc make extravagant orders. Jack gives his in a leisurely style, possibly meant to buy me time to figure out what I'd like.

         It isn't enough. But Jack doesn't let things get too awkward. "The lady needs another minute," he interrupts the waiters' question and sends him off for the time being.

         I don't relish the inevitability of a meal's worth of conversation with Nar and Diluc. As far as it would give me something to occupy myself with, that makes eating a good proposition.

         The waiter returns with a basket filled with miniature loaves of bread. "This looks like something you would make," Jack remarks to me, appraising the basket. "Do you have anything she's made?" he looks to the other men, "For my birthday last year, she made me a really pretty bracelet."

         They don't. I doubt they're all that interested.

         The bread on the table smells good and it starts to stir my appetite. Still, I order a bit timidly. No need to go overboard and I hate to waste food, of all things.

         Even with the rainclouds of Silk's awful death hanging over us, Jack is good at making conversation and does much of the work of keeping the other two engaged. I just want to ask them things like 'is there anything I can do to help Pal?' and 'what sort of measures are being taken to find Silk's murderer?' and they're not the best topics for meal-time conversation.

         I focus my attention on my pasta-soup sort of dish. It's good and goes well with the bread, which I break into pieces and dip into the sauce/broth.

         For all that Jack didn't get us Victor Affairs' blessing on our wedding, I think the meeting has gone decently. I'll pick up my things and go home after this.

         "So," Nar sighs, leaning back in his chair a little, relaxed, "I guess this wasn't about what I'd been thinking it might be about."

         "I told you that was groundless gossip," Diluc sniffs, adopting a superior sort of attitude toward his colleague. "No one with any sense believes the unfounded nonsense they come up with on the low-budget, late night talk circuit."

         What Liam Odair was telling me about, maybe. And they're dismissing it. I'll deal publicly with these changes in my life one at a time, I suppose. The baby is due at an opportune time as far as the Games schedule goes. Maybe I can more or less keep it all on the down low… Leave the baby in 4 when I go back to mentor? (Will it be old enough for that? Having to take care of a baby would interfere with my mentoring responsibilities. …But it would be an innocent-enough occasion for Jack to see his child…)

         Jack leans over the table a ways, narrowing the distance between him and the Capitol men, like he's about to share a secret or a risqué sort of joke. "Have we been hearing the same things?"

         "Considering the company that surrounds you, Jack, I have a feeling you hear everything we hear and then some," Diluc rolls his eyes. "Also, don't think I don't know how carefully you keep an ear to the pulse of matters concerning your…" he pauses, "Your wife."

         I squirm in my seat. As much as I'd like to make at least a momentary escape from this situation, if I even just head to the ladies' room, I'm afraid what they might say about me while I'm gone (not that Jack would say something bad about me, but he'd say a lot of things to work a situation to his advantage- I might as well be there to hear them).

         Jack looks at me thoughtfully- taking my measure. He wants to bring it up. I can tell. I bite my lip. I try to sidestep the matter without answering to it one way or another, "You're embarrassing me, you guys."

         "I couldn't help but think that you're too careful for that," Nar skirts around the edge of the subject, but a hint of curiosity moves below the surface of those words. …He wasn't likely to believe it before. But now…am I not as cautious as Nar thought I was?

         Diluc settles the bill and rises from his seat, adjusting his tinted glasses (they're purple today- I had remembered them as blue, but maybe they're just a different pair). "Well, thank you both for coming," he shakes hands with Jack and me in turn. "I'll call you, Jack."

         "If there's anyone in the Capitol I trust to handle things well, it's you, Diluc," Jack says, encouraging him to do his best work.

         And then we're left alone with Nar. "You look pale," he notes, then looks to the dregs of my drink remaining, "Waiter," he summons the man back, "Bring her another."

         "Oh, I," I start to say that it's not necessary, but what's the point in protesting something so simple and small? I'm sure I will be able to drink a reasonable amount of another glass. I let it go.

         "So you're not pregnant then."

         Avoiding the truth is much easier than lying. …and when Nar finds out- which he inevitably will (there's also only so much I can lie to myself)- he's not going to be happy that I kept this from him. "No," I look down at the lacy tablecloth, "I am. …But-"

         And here's where the lying will come in- where it has at least a tiny chance of making a difference. I will deny Jack's involvement in this matter- I will not paint him a party to this carelessness, but, rather, the gallant friend who swept in in the midst of my predicament and, with wedding vows, rescued me from the disdain of those with more restrictive morals. (Honestly, I wouldn't say 4 is as antiquated about these sorts of things as the Capitol would consider us to be- most people understand how hard times carve out different sorts of family arrangements- but the Capitol likes to see itself as strictly divided from the districts even in areas where there would be, perhaps, a continuity (the districts further out, I've heard, are very conservative- but I don't know them enough to judge)).

         "But Jack-"

         "I will be responsible for this as well," Jack steps in where I am wavering and- and I could still spin this down the path I mean to travel-

         "Jack," I try to intercept him before he can say something he shouldn't say.

         "If you had any notion of not taking our marriage seriously, you can put it aside now," Jack goes on, "And tell Diluc or whoever else needs to here it the same thing. I understand our situation doesn't lend itself to any traditional arrangement, but I am not about to just dissolve the promises I made or laugh them off."

         How worried I am by this declaration obviously shows. I'm not making an concerted effort to hold it back. …If I were to try and put a name to Nar's expression…well, I think his thoughts must be: "Are you crazy?" To me, maybe? To Jack, certainly. Or maybe both us (all of us victors, out of our minds).

         Jack's look softens as he takes in my bothered expression. He loops his arm around my shoulders. "If there's going to be a problem, Mr. Lycius, make sure to bring it up with both of us, but let the consequences fall on me alone. I plan to do the best as I can, as a husband and as a father."

         Nar lets out a slow, enormous sigh. He's deciding, I think, that there's nothing he can do about this, at least not at the moment (because Diluc isn't here to back him up?). Then he looks around the room. "Service sure is slow."

         But I don't think that's an accurate assessment of things. The poor waiter is hanging back out of fear, I'm certain. I see him at the edge of the room with fresh drinks for all of us balanced on a tray. Seeing Nar looking at him, he finally approaches. He stands closest to Nar and starts to try handing out the drinks, but Nar, probably taking out his irritation at us on this unfortunate waiter, snatches them off himself, one at a time.

         A little paper umbrella was stuck into a thin fruit slice floating near the top of mine this time around and it falls out onto the table along with a splash of the tea, victim to Nar's rough handling. I try to reach out and pick it up, but Nar inserts himself here as well, wiping off my glass with his cloth napkin and tossing the umbrella haphazardly back in.

         He sighs again. "I've changed my mind," he pushes his own drink away from him, toward the interior of the table, "It might, indeed, take me more alcohol to settle this with myself, but I'll do it in the peace of my own home if need be. Good night," he announces, "I'll be in touch."

         We watch him go.

         "It…could've been a lot worse," Jack shrugs.

         "Honestly, now I'm just going to be waiting for the hammer to fall…" My eyes trace the trails of condensation running down my drink. "…You shouldn't have taken responsibility for everything…"

         "We're mutually involved in this. I wasn't just going to let you take the fall."

         My new drink doesn't taste the same as the first one. I wonder if there was some kind of mix up. Or maybe Nar got crumbs in it from his meal when he wiped it with his napkin. "…I didn't want to get you in trouble," I mumble.

         "I guess we're too alike on that score."

         I don't quite have the heart to get into what I meant to say and why I meant to say it now that there's no taking his words back anyway. I'm not sure how much he would like that Kayta was the one who gave me the advice to go that way either. When they're together, Jack and Kayta always seem to get along, but I can hardly say that Kayta speaks in an unconditionally admiring or friendly way.

         Jack thinks of something easier to digest. He laughs. "Oh, that poor waiter! …And I don't know if you could see, but they left him the most awful tip too. I was already thinking he deserved better before Nar chewed him out over the refills."

         Jack takes his wallet out of a back pocket and sets several bills on the table for the waiter. He hastily swallows the rest of his second drink. I sip at mine, trying to decide whether the shift in flavor actually bothers me or not. "Would you like to finish that before we go?"

         "Nah," I decide, "That'll take too long." I don't have any interest in forcing myself to glug it down. "I'm fine leaving now."

         The waiter calls loudly after us to have a nice day upon finding the tip (that this is the trigger for his action is so transparent as to be hysterical- I manage to withhold my laughter until we're outside at least).

         That laughter ends abruptly when we enter the car sent by the service and my ears are assailed by a rather graphic description of the too close to home crime currently rocking the Capitol news services. "Turn that off," Jack doesn't exactly snap, but he doesn't waste a moment in saying so.

         The driver complies, frowning. It isn't far to Jack's place. We travel in near-silence and leave the driver waiting for us on the curb while we make our brief stop inside, basically for me to pick up my things, before heading out to the train station.

         We head off to the proper platform, but it seems that I'm early. I haven't been outdoors for long on this particular excursion to the Capitol. It's cold. Jack sees me shiver and takes off his jacket, wrapping it around my shoulders. It's pretty effective at this job, being that it's somewhat pre-warmed from his wearing it and Jack's having a good eight inches or so on me means it covers a lot more of me than it does him.

         "Hey, you mentioned a new song earlier," I remind him, glad to be out of the presence of the men from the Department of Victor Affairs and, therefore eager to change the subject from the tense matters we discussed with them (I can't make myself think positively about what conclusions were reached between the four of us, but I can temporarily crowd them out of my mind- there's waiting to do, anyway, before those matters are settled for good). "So, before we go our separate ways…are you going to sing?" I whisper.

         Jack bends down. He sets my valise on the ground beside his feet- a totally innocuous gesture- then levels his lips near my ear: "…You are my sunshine-"

         Oh. I don't breathe. It's an old song. And, as far as I know, a District 4 song. A Norleans song, according to Papa, which means it's older than Panem if he's right. …So maybe it's there in 1 as well, or somewhere else.

         "-My only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey."

         I manage to breathe, but I'm still mesmerized. Jack's voice is soft and gentle as it wafts around me. "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away."

         He knows every word- and what's additionally notable, I realize, is the _version_ of the song he knows. It depends on the person singing the song- who they learned it from- exactly how the versions go.

         "-Down by the ocean, I feel so small, dear, it's all too big when I'm alone-"

         Jack sings "You Are My Sunshine" like Papa. I can't believe that he could've learned this particular version anywhere but from someone in District 4.

         I tremble and he puts his arm around my shoulders.

         "-We will be happy, both you and I, dear, we will have sunshine every day…"

         He sings every word.

         It's just another thing that's too much. I feel a bit unsteady on my feet- a touch faint maybe? It's not easy to tell what the reason is at a moment like this.

 

         "Hey, Miss Mags," the conductor calls to me, looking up from his clipboard, "Better hop on up- this is your ride!"

         "Oh, um, thank you," I reply. Either I missed noticing them when we showed up, or they only just lit up as ready for travel now.

         "You look really tired," Jack tells me, "You better go home and take it easy."

         "Are you sure you don't need me here to help you out with things?" I give it one last bit of consideration, fidgeting by running the bottom edge of my black top between my fingers.

         "They want everyone who's usually in their district to go back to it- you know, something about security… Anyway, I can manage, Mags. I'll think of something," Jack replies, "I'll let you know if you're absolutely necessary, but don't let it get to you while it's out of your hands." He smooths back some loose strands of my hair, then picks my valise up from the ground and passes it to me. His smile strains kind of sad. "In all the world, you're the best friend I've ever had."

         I'm touched. I'm not quite sure what to say. I take off his jacket and look at it for a moment, choosing my words, before handing it over and turning my gaze back up to meet his green eyes. "…yeah…" I smile, "I love you too."

         He waits until I've boarded the train for us to truly go our separate ways. I can see him through one of the windows as he turns and walks away.

         "Private car this time," the train conductor leads me forward through the cars to my appointed place. It's probably another security measure of sorts, but it doesn't strike me as particularly secure unless there are precautions being taken (cameras?) that I'm not aware of.

         "Thank you," I shake the man's hand before he goes.

         I still feel a bit strange (I guess it wasn't the result of some wonderful being swept off my feet, ha). But feeling strange shouldn't surprise me these days- I mean, I've already felt strange on two separate occasions today. Fresh air usually helps, but while pregnant, my stomach's turned easily. And then there's the unpleasantness of on my mind regarding the friend I've just lost. It's amazing that at our meal tonight I could eat at all. …but it's me, right? And Jack. I suppose no one was ultimately surprised.

         A familiar face greets me as I reach to open the door to my private train car. "Oh," I smile, "Hello Columbine!"

         She smiles back.

         I wonder who exactly she works for; how do the Avoxes receive their assignments? For now, I get settled and try to ignore my physical discomfort. I ask for, then take tiny sips from, a glass of water.

         I don't begin to feel better, so I idly flip through the Capitol's many television channels, trying to keep my thoughts away from my rising nausea. If I must be sick like that, can't I at least get home first? …Being over-anxious isn't going to do me any favors.

         And then a stab of pain shoots through me. I double over in agony. Oh. Oh, no. I can only lean to the side and keep the majority of the contents of my stomach from getting on me. The aftertaste left in my mouth is disgusting. My throat burns. Sweat beads upon my brow.

         Another jolt of pain targets my lower back. What's wrong with me? It can't be- it's months too early.

         I try to keep my breathing calm and steady, but that plan is interrupted by more unpredictable pains.

         I'm scared. I'm so scared. How much longer 'til I'm back home in 4? Do I need to call out for help?

         I feel something wet between my legs.

_Peter, Zeno, Elmo, Brendan, Nicholas._

         I bring myself to slip a trembling hand beneath my skirt. My fingers come away stained dark with blood. The pain's not stopping. I feel faint.

         The door opens and Columbine enters, presumably to make her way along a routine path to see if any of the passengers require anything.

         As her eyes falls upon me, does her look of fear reflect my own? She is half as frightened as I feel? "Col-" I gasp, my plea my help.

         Columbine drops her tray and notepad and rushes to my side, reaching an arm around my shoulders.

         I manage to make eye contact with her for just a moment before I pass out into her grasp.

 

*****

 

         I awaken in a room I don't recognize, looking at a pale yellow ceiling.

         I feel very tired.

         "I think she's awake," says 'Lito, who then leans over and looks down at me. "…Hi Mags," he greets me in a crisply delicate tone. …It reminds me of how he first spoke to me after I came home a victor. It is a sign that sets me worrying.

         "Mags," Papa's face pokes into my vision next, "Oh, Mags. How do you feel?"

         "Tired," I reply and it comes out as an appropriately weak mumble.

         "Sweetheart," he takes my hand, "Do you remember what happened?"

         …And he must realize that this is all it takes to make me begin to recall it, because I feel myself turning white. "I- I," I stutter.

         With his free hand, Papa strokes the loose hairs back from my forehead. "Mags."

         The number of times he has said my name in this small period of time is another worrying element. 'Lito is giving Papa a concerned glance as he waits to see what he will tell me.

         "Mags," he says carefully, "The baby didn't make it."

         The baby. My baby. Mine and Jack's.

         It is a good thing I am lying down because I am sure I would feel faint if I were even just sitting.

         "I'm so sorry, dear," Papa squeezes my hand.

         I can't bring myself to squeeze it back.

         "I'm sorry too," 'Lito agrees, though I'd be sure of his sentiments even if he didn't say it. Both of them understand as well as they can. Both of them are so kind.

         I don't know what to say.

         But proof comes, as usual, that Papa understands the best anyone can. "You don't have to say anything, Mags, but if you want to, you know I'll listen."

         I can't think of anything to say.

 

         I have fevered thoughts of Jack and Silk and everything else. It's hard to tell exactly where daydreams blur into real sleep. I dream of the man who called the names in District 1 during the First Games- the man was who was so gleeful to exact this retribution on the district people. Am I alone or is there a crowd? Either way, it seems like a foregone conclusion when he calls out, "Margaret Umber!"

         Faline is standing beside me holding onto my arm (was she there the whole time?). "You can't take her!" she screams, "You can't take her again!"

         "She was a different person then," the man insists, reaching out toward me, "That was a different name."

         But I won't step forward to the stage and Faline won't let go. "No! That's not how it works!" she shrills out, sharp and insistent. "Mags is Mags! It doesn't matter what name!"

 

         It's a bothersome dream.

         I awaken briefly to Faline sitting beside me, brushing out my hair. She's says what I'm sure 'Lito and Papa were thinking before. "We were afraid you were gonna die."

         "…I'm glad I didn't."

         She makes a funny face. "…Doctor thinks it was really unexpected. He didn't see any reason you should've had any major problems."

         "Yeah?" I don't know what to think about that. I mean, it's true. If Dr. Haddock had anticipated any major health hazard he would've told me. Warned me what to do or not do. None of the advice I received from either the doctor or Miss Nasika was anything but standard according to them.

         "Jack keeps calling the house. …I talked to him." She keeps at it with my hair. "How about two braids? Would that be comfortable?" she switches to the topic immediately at hand.

         "Yeah, sure…" It sounds fine, but even if it didn't, I don't think I have it in me at the moment to do anything but agree.

         "When I told Jack you weren't at home, he wanted me to give him the number of the clinic," Faline goes on, starting on the braids, "But I wasn't sure about it. I de-deferred? Deferred it?" she considers her word choice, "Um, I passed it along to your dad. Jack thought he could sing to you even if you weren't feeling up to talking. He thought it would make you feel better."

         "…oh." A part of me is glad to hear that Jack called. It means he's okay. He wasn't sick too. …but another part of me is roused to anger. …If this is such a fluke, what happened to me, then, might it not be random after all? Nar had come to that meeting with rumors of my being pregnant already swirling in his head. He wasn't happy about it. He even less happy about it because of Jack, I'm sure. There's no way he can't be pleased with this outcome.

         …there was that strange taste. It came after he touched my drink.

         Jack didn't need to be sick to accomplish the outcome the people who manage us preferred. Only me. I could've been a casualty. …maybe they would've even liked that, considering what I'd gone and done. Would it have been different if they hadn't known it was Jack's child? The various districts aren't meant to band together after all. We can be friendly rivals at best.

         There's a voice inside that says this happened to me because of Jack. I don't want to embrace it, but at the same time, I can't seem to turn it away. It wriggles its way, like a worm, deep into me, causing a sickness of another sort to overwhelm me.

         When Kayta said to lie about the baby, he was right. (Back on my Tour, when Kayta was going to tell me his opinion of Jack and he never really got the chance- he was probably right then too.)

         And I wanted to follow that advice. To leave room, at least, for doubt. To show the Capitol that I might have erred, but that I understood the rules, nevertheless.

         Maybe then there would've been a chance.

         "…Mags?" Faline worries at my silence. "Are you okay? Is there something I should do?"

         "No." I don't want to worry her anymore unnecessarily, "No, I was just thinking."

         "Well," she resumes her anecdote about the phone call, "Your dad didn't think he should. That all you needed was peace and quiet for now."

         "Oh…" I could picture it. Jack singing to me while I was sleeping. …what would he have sung?

         "I could sing to you if you think that would make you feel better," Faline suggests.

         …I really don't see how I could say no to that offer.

         Faline has a small, sort of squeaky voice, rough around the edges the way mine probably is too, but is harder to notice because it's mine. She sings the ship-faring song about long-gone countries that I sang to Jack and the peach blossom song that they always made us sing at school in the springtime and the sailor's song that haunted my solitary time in the arena. Focusing on her voice is…sort of relaxing?

         She finishes one braid and comes around to the other side of the bed to do the other without too much leaning over me.

         "…all I have longed for, I have found by the seashore," she quietly sings on, "At your side, I will seek other shores…"

        

 

 

         The baby was a boy.

         The funeral is the second place I go after being released from Dr. Haddock's care. Peacekeeper Benett sees me on the way there and expressed both his relief at my recovery and his condolences over my loss. I ask if he has children back in 2. None, and he's unmarried, but when his term here is done, he hopes to make room for both back home. I wish him the best with this.

         Padre Tino says the words. Zeno assists him. Papa is, I think, trying to be strong for me, but the tremor in his hands acts up more than usual- that he doesn't even seem to be trying to tamp it down reflects on his state of mind.

         The baby that was not properly born, that I cocooned, but was no mother to, is, at least, properly laid to rest. Jack, off in 1 or the Capitol, cannot even see the fruit of his misguided feelings go into the ground. Not the cemetery that holds him. Not the grave marker, bearing just one name- a first name with no last name, all that I could manage to bestow on this baby: Tito.

         Papa rubs my back.

         I don't cry. I just stand there feeling ill.

         I don't think I pass out, I'm probably just in a daze, but someone must have carried me to Mrs. Mirande's home, because I have no recollection of walking there myself. There's a small lunch set out, a pretty green salad and some sandwiches. Papa encourages me to eat if my stomach can handle it. I drink watery lemonade from a chipped pink cup. Papa and Mr. Armain and Mrs. Mirande talk and talk and talk in soft voices.

         Back at home, there's a home message from Sunny slightly garbled with emotion (obviously everyone knows some version of what happened and it must be all over the news and gossip circuit). She tried to put in a request to visit me here in 4, even trading on her skill as a nurse to paint a fairly plausible picture of how she would be both comforting and useful in my current circumstances, but she was turned down.

         "Do you want to call her back up?" Papa asks.

         "Maybe later."

         "In case anyone else calls, I'll man the phone," 'Lito announces.

         I lie on top of my bed. Papa comes in and lays a thick, colorful blanket over me. It's all patches and thick embroidery- familiar patterns I don't know the meaning of, and some more knowable shapes like daisies and waves. "This arrived special delivery from District Eight while we were up on the overlook this morning."

         "Pal," I mumble. Obviously this is his handiwork. He's been saddened half to death and still he manages this for me.

         The phone rings, but only once and half a time more before 'Lito must've grabbed it.

         "Rest all you need, dear," Papa pats my shoulder, "And give one of us a holler for anything at all."

         I give my agreement and he rises and goes to leave me be. I pull the blanket up against my face. It smells like Pal- the way his house probably smells. Dust and fresh fabric and a hint of dye. I feel so bad about Pal and poor, sweet Silk. I was wrong when I assumed a fellow victor was someone I could reasonably expect to be friends with until I was- if not old and gray- maybe about sixty at least? Adjusting for average life expectancy by district a bit (going by statistics, Hector and Gerik could expect an easy fifteen years on Teejay and Sunny, for instance).

        

         I spend the next two or three days or so mainly being sick in bed. More sick at heart than otherwise, I suppose (Miss Nasika says I should have some tests done in the future if I'm ever thinking of being pregnant again- there could be lasting damage from this episode and it's hard for her to say for sure one way or the other because of the slipperiness of the cause- I am still very young, she says- but I can't see how I would ever want to do again what I never properly intended in the first place).

         Faline brings over the book of Jules Verne stories I bought her a while back in the Capitol and reads to me. I try to write a letter to Pal, but all I manage is, in its entirety: "Dear Pal, Thank you for the quilt. I hope you're hanging in there. I'm really sorry." It's too hard to write more. After two days of staring at it on and off, I just mail it to him like that. I think he'll understand.

         I don't watch any TV (it's easy not to even see any incidentally when I'm sticking largely to my room), but it's easy enough to gather from my friends and family that along with all the remembering going on regarding Silk there's also, as I assumed, plenty of talk about me.

 

         When I wander downstairs into the kitchen one morning, I can hear Sunny's voice drifting in from the screen. She sounds so sincere, as she always does, asking that when people see me again the Capitol that they be sensitive about this "delicate matter."

         Someone with a Capitol accent (I don't know who and don't look over to see) takes over, talking about, well, related things to what I've just gone through, but I don't want to listen.

         The TV shuts off. Apparently Papa doesn't want to listen either. He must assume I'm still upstairs and probably sleeping, because he doesn't come in and say anything to me before leaving.

         I heat some water and drink a cup of tea before deciding to go out to take a walk.

         I know exactly where I want to go.

         No one says more than a cautiously casual "hello" to me along the way.

 

         The main cemetery in District 4 looks out over the sea. Of course, most things in 4 face the sea. With our nation what it is, who would ever want to look back at the land? The sea is our life.

         I've come up the hill to visit and to be alone. Knowing that no district has had back to back winners yet tempered some of my hopes that there was anything I could do to bring back Shaya or Salvador. It was up to them. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt, but it was an expected sort of pain.

         Maybe I felt a little cockier for the 14th Hunger Games and that's why I feel worse for Maria and Jerrick. They were both volunteers. They had a good dynamic and a good mindset considering what they were going into. The earth around their graves is still a bit softer and slightly more unsettled than the rest. Maybe feeling worse each time we fail is just part and parcel of the job. Maybe it will wear me down more and more each year until I die.

         I am probably telling myself this to distract myself from my personal tragedy.

         I walk around the cemetery, reading off the names I know. Mama (though she's just a name here, not a body), Beanpole, Aoko, Maria, Papa's parents who I never met, my mother's parents who I never met either, Shaya, Jerrick, Beanpole's father, Salvador, the school principal from when I was a little girl, Dago who was one of my dad's fishing buddies, Irene Odair who was reaped the year before me, and Cosmo Malaqua who was reaped with her (I knew them- I knew them both, just somewhat, but better than anyone else reaped before me aside from Aoko). It occurs to me that I know an awful lot of dead people. Is the number about average for someone my age? Unlike most people in 4, I know dead people who're buried in some other district too. The other tributes. If I tried to list them, maybe I could come up with all of their names, but I don't want to think about it that hard (I see Sparrow even if I try to avoid it).

         I picked "Tito," but it's not like the one I lost _really_ had a name. Jack and I didn't take care and thoughtfully choose a name together. This was just a simple name. Something I liked, I suppose. Just something to say. I didn't end up a mother anyway.

         Back at home I imagine my phone keeps ringing and ringing and ringing like it has since I got back- not constantly, but compared to normal, it feels like it. I couldn't answer and everyone else had finally gone out, so I had to leave. If it's still ringing when I return later, I'm going to disconnect it.

         Maybe it's just Apple. Well, Apple would probably have some condolences to pass on, but she hates to talk about anything negative, so she wouldn't be one to belabor it.

         Or maybe it's Aulie, with his own sympathies and some cheerful Capitol chatter to balance them out.

         If it's Nar, from Victor Affairs, I don't want to hear it. I hate him. For my all my misgivings regarding my situation, I wasn't going to give up. I will never forgive him for what he did.

         But it's probably Jack. "Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack," I think his name over and over as I reach the driftwood fence at the far end of the cemetery, protecting unsuspecting visitors from wandering off the edge of the cliffs. I lean on the fence and stare down at the churning water. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready to talk to Jack. I'm not sure I can handle him after this.

         "Hey, Mags," 'Lito shows up and puts his hand on my shoulder. I lean my head down against it. I knew someone would come after me sooner or later. 'Lito or Faline or Papa. They're the ones I can talk to. 'Lito or Faline or Papa. And usually Jack, but maybe not anymore.

         "I know I'm supposed to be at work, but I was getting kind of worried about you," he admits. "I took my break early."

         "You're too nice to me." Really, he is. I don't know why. I mean, I know why he wants to be nice to me, but I don't see what about me would make him feel that way.

         "I saw you got a package in the mail today."

         I stiffen, though I try to hide my discomfort, leaving my head on 'Lito's shoulder even though it's sort of hurting my neck now.

         "It's wrapped up all bright yellow. Your favorite."

         He knows who it's from; I can guess. And 'Lito probably knows that I can. I think part of my problem is caring too much too easily. Everyone is too dear to me.

         "And Jack called," 'Lito adds momentarily. "He heard through the grapevine how you…" he struggles, then deals with it by altering his word choice, "…That you were sick. He really wants to talk to you."

         "I know," I sigh, "He called before too. Faline told me so."

         "I guess that makes sense."

 

         I'm not sure I really want to talk to Jack with 'Lito present (though 'Lito doesn't hang near me, he doesn't stray from the farther side of the room), but if I really love him- if he really is my friend like I said he was- I have to stop putting this off.

         I call his place in the Capitol. The phone rings and rings. There's a recording: "Hi, you've reached Jack. Leave a message after the tone."

         I take a deep breath. "Jack, it's Mags." What else do I need to say? "Let's talk." I put down the phone.

         "He wasn't there?" 'Lito asks.

         "Nope…"

         "You wanna open your package?" he points to the item in question, left sitting on the kitchen table.

         "Maybe in a minute," I answer. I offer him something to drink- iced tea, maybe? With a slice of lime? I mean, he is over visiting with me on his break, after all, but 'Lito turns it down. We don't have much more time to talk either before he has to go back to work (though he's confident he's got a small window beyond the actual length of his break in which his older brother will cover for him).

        

         Left alone, I try calling Jack's house in District One, although I'm more or less sure he's in the Capitol. I reach a pre-recorded message there too, but this one's not even in Jack's voice. It's a woman with a Capitol accent- I want to say this is some stylist or previous escort for his district or something, but it's not like I really know. I don't leave any message of my own in this place.

         I sit down at the table and idly begin to rip at the paper containing the package he sent me. It's awkwardly put together, but Jack has sent me all kinds of things…in some kind of frantic attempt to get through to me? To comfort me? A package of Crispco crackers and a necklace of little green glass beads and a book of pictures from the aquarium we visited but some of the pages are taped closed and Jack has scribbled the reason why ("sharks") on the surface of the tape. There are pieces of candy and a funny metal cricket that turns out to be sort of a music box, but it makes cricket sounds instead, and, protected in an enveloped, something dried and natural and still green, if a different shade than when I last saw it- a fragment of our wedding net.

         Alongside it is a photograph. Some kind of professionally taken picture, I'd like to say. From the studio. Jack and I stand side by side, grinning. …He's written on the back: "I love you. Please don't ever stop being my friend. -Jack"

         Of course we're still friends. It would take a lot more to rend that bond asunder.

         It's curiosity about what's going on with Jack that leads me to turn the TV on. There are the usual episodic stories composed of inane fictions. I see rather impolitely intrusive footage peering through the panes of Pal's windows to try and show some sign of the absolute wreckage of his life since Silk's death, but the host has to leave disappointed because even at a moment like this, Pal's home is still neater than mine. There are a few dishes sitting in the sink and a pair of shoes discarded randomly on the stairs. That's it for disarray.

         I can see some of Silk's dolls though, on a worktable set up in the living room, and I can feel my chest tighten at the sight.

         There are a series of political debate pieces airing. If it comes from the right sort of people (and even within the Capitol that's a select group), the president allows at least a token amount of disagreement with his policies to be aired. In that sense, I suppose you can't say he's a completely unreasonable man.

         And, apparently, in the previous piece, some political opponent even slandered him indicating he was involved in what happened to Silk- that everyone knew how much he enjoyed her company, but that his interest in her had gone beyond the generally acceptable so he had gotten what he wanted and then concocted some kind of cover scheme. The man who put forth this argument, I gather, is still alive and well, but his own party, deeming this suggestion itself beyond the pale, expelled him from their organization.

         I don't think the president had anything to do with what happened to Silk. As much as it disgusts me to think of it, I wouldn't discount the possibility that he would've liked to sleep with her, but he wasn't going to destroy his career over it and he wouldn't have wanted her dead. The president is, himself, pushing forward the search for her killer quite vigorously, I see.

         More frightening, really, is an idea I see raised in an open discussion panel (or what is called one- it seems a bit well-organized to be completely off the cuff). If all the sponsorship promises hadn't gone through Pal personally, but had been handled instead by Victor Affairs, it's suggested that Silk wouldn't have been killed (I can only hope that Pal doesn't see a second of this sort of talk). There is an unspoken implication that sex with the young victor might not have been beyond the pale- they do note how she was legally of age by this time and that her killer had probably lusted over her since her Games but had waited until he had at least a tiny chance of somehow convincing her and getting what he wanted within the confines of legality- but that under the auspices of Victor Affairs, such a thing would have been carefully managed.

         At the same time as I listen, I vaguely wonder if Pal killed 8's Victor Affairs liaison over all this (while it's not that man's fault, he did seem almost entirely unsympathetic) if he could be acquitted by virtue of his current mental state.

 

         I don't see anything live or new this day involving Jack, though when there's idle discussion on one slow afternoon news program during the celebrity segment wondering when I might be seen in the Capitol again (there is some consideration giving to whether I am ashamed and won't show my face until the Games), a clip is played back on the screen behind the hosts.

         This is my first time seeing it. Jack is hearing the news live. "Our correspondent in Four has just confirmed Victor Mags Gaudet has suffered a miscarriage and is in currently in serious condition." The usual cohort of hosts and co-hosts from the channel look concerned and somewhat surprised, expressing their wonderment over why I would've kept my condition a secret so long (seeing as the news has now revealed me to have been five months pregnant).

         It upsets these people, but Jack is clearly aghast. All the color drains out of his face and he doesn't raise a single question or comment.

         Finally, one of the women asks if he knew I'd been pregnant.

         "Yes," he replies quietly, "But you know she's very private about that sort of thing. She wanted to keep it a secret."

         The people on today's live show express the opinion that Jack will be happier to see me back in the Capitol than anyone else. The inevitable gossip that it was his child rattles about. After that performance, I can't blame them. There is file footage from 4 that shows me walking with 'Lito, indicating how I was well until right up until this "sudden tragedy," but he's not identified by name. I can't say I blame them for latching onto the flashier (and, ironically, true) story.

         But as far as I can tell, no one has actually interviewed Jack and put the question straight to him. …He might answer truthfully. …at this point, what would be the harm in it?

 

         I try to call him again, but only reach the answering machine.

 

         I don't hear anything from him that night and fret about it. "He gets busy, you know," Papa is again the voice of reason, "Maybe one of the others can tell you something?"

         I decide to call up Sunny- I'm pretty sure she's been in the Capitol since we all talked about Silk because of the day I overheard her talking a bit about me. She's perfectly pleased to hear from me, turning around from a yawning hello to "Oh my gosh, Mags, I'm so happy that you called" within the space of a heartbeat. It turns out she has been in the Capitol and she has seen Jack. "He wasn't sure about the quality of healthcare you'd receive in Four, but I was able to reassure him that it was within the bounds of what your people should be able to handle."

         "I appreciate that, Sunny."

         "You're welcome. But, um. I'm… I'm really sorry about what happened."

         "It's…" I sigh. "Well, thanks. There was nothing you could do… But, ah, the reason I called- Do you know what's up with Jack right now? I thought you might know if he were busy working or something."

         "He is busy… I mean, I don't know about right this evening or anything that specific, but he's been in and out of the Victor Affairs office and almost every time I see him not on a soundstage, he's on the phone with someone. He's pretty upset about what happened with you, but, I mean, that's done, so it must be something else that he's trying to wrangle."

         "Huh. Thank you for that too."

         "I like you, Mags. It's my pleasure, when I can, to help you out."

 

         I don't sleep very well at first. I keep waking up. Then, when I finally slip down into it, I sleep late.

         Papa wakes me up to tell me he's going into town to buy a few things and reminds me that Jack should be on this morning. It hurries me up, getting washed up and dressed. I go downstairs and turn on the television to find myself the subject of some rather cutting conversation- some kind of implication that what happened to me was not tragic, like most of the things I've heard seem to have made it out to be ('the tragic lives of victors!' See also events in the post-Games lives of Teejay, Luna, Silk, Sunny…), but that I was a clueless little girl who tried to handle a pregnancy in a superstitious district manner rather than relying on Capitol wisdom. "Your clueless sweetheart in-"

         "My wife," Jack interrupts, "Be hard on her if you want, but at least be accurate. She's my wife."

         Gaya and Principa exchange confused looks.

         "I've been married coming up on three weeks now," Jack lifts his hand and flashes his ring to the camera. "Sorry I had to drop it on you like that all of the sudden." He's as cheerfully apologetic as if- Well, he's treating it like it's completely normal. I am gaping at the screen. Why is he doing it like this? Why would he not work something out with his television colleagues beforehand?

         "And she's been very sick recently. I think you should cut her some slack."

         Like our kiss at Silk's crowning party, like getting married without asking permission from our handlers, he's seizing the moment. Acting before someone can stop him.

         That has to be it. I touch my right hand to my own wedding band, worrying its smooth surface between my fingers. Once it's out there and people know, how can they make him take it back?

         But Columbine and Brendan and all the others were someones who made choices that led to their voices being stolen. And Luna's family is called again and again because having a victor wasn't enough to settle matters in District 9 when others insisted it should be. Tributes are pulled from District 2 and die like the rest of us despite their unbroken allegiance to the Capitol. Rae was reborn as Sunny because the first female victor having lost all touch with reality was deemed unpalatable. In response to rebellion, the Hunger Games. All of us know the Capitol's concept of an equitable response.

         If this is Jack's gambit when almost three weeks have nearly passed, what other routes did he try and find blocked that led him to finally choose this way?

         Gaya starts to backtrack her previous statement a bit, "So, if Mags, in her illness, lost her child, you mean to say that was-"

         "The camera cuts out abruptly. Gaya and Principa and Jack are replaced onscreen by Tealia Magnussen in her see-through umbrella dress with underwear beneath that blend into the green-screened map giving a perfectly ordinary national weather forecast.

         My heart is pounding. I am horrified. How much worse can things get? What will happen to Jack? I want to scream at him: "Forget about it! Let it go!" I would rather lie, would cast it all aside, say we were never married, rather than have them hurt him. I don't want to lose Jack too!

         I rush to pick up the phone, but I'm not immediately sure who to call. Who will know what's going on? Who can help me do something that will make any difference? These things are hard to say. I must err instead toward something I do know: who is on my side.

         "Apple, pick up," I groan as her phone rings and rings.

         "Mags," she greets me at last, "I've been so worried about you! I've called a few times, but I always get someone else. I mean, your father is a darling man and Faline answered all my questions so sweetly, but I just kept wondering when I would be able to talk to _you_."

         "Apple, it's really important," I say, letting my tone impress this notion upon her, "Did you just see Jack on TV?"

         "No…"

         "It was the live morning program and they suddenly cut his segment off. I'm really worried about him. I need help. I have to find out what's happening."

         "I'll see what I can find out," she hastens to assure me, "But you should try Aulus if you haven't already- he has better connections than I do."

         I thank her and proceed along that course. Unlike Apple, Aulie did see the program's sudden shift. "You really got married?" he asks in a voice hushed with concern, "Is there anyone to speak to that?"

         "Pal," I reply, "And Silk too, but-" He knows what I mean and that it's difficult, so, as to that, I don't say more. "But don't worry about that part," I insist, "It's not ou-our marriage that concerns me. It's Jack's safety. It's that he might be in trouble. Aulie, I need help. I'm willing to sacrifice whatever it takes. If that's what they need, I'll call him a liar. Just- just help me protect Jack." I feel breathless with worry.

         It's not that I think anyone in a position of power within the Games system had anything to do with what happened to Silk, but the way she is mourned and moved on from worries me. Having her victory partially bought and paid for was a factor in Silk's terrible demise, but before that, it was also her salvation. Silk was beloved by all sorts of people, but see how quickly they were able to paint her as expendable. Why should things be any different for Jack?

         "I'm sure you'll be able to help him," Aulie's voice grows stronger. He puts up a good front at least.

         "I guess I may have to, but I'm afraid to call Victor Affairs," I admit. As much as possible, I want to circumvent that office as I struggle to do something meaningful to ease this situation. It was Victor Affairs that decided that the proper solution to my unlawful pregnancy was to kill my child (and did they know or care if that action would take me with it?). It was Jack's willingness to try and work with Victor Affairs that provided them with such a convenient opportunity to execute this plot against my consent.

         "Don't do it yet," Aulie answers and I'm glad to hear it, "Pack up and be ready to go. I'll get you on the first train in I can manage."

         "Thank you." I want to respond with the full weight of my overwhelming emotions- I want Aulie to know how grateful I am for any and all the things he does for me- but my voice comes out as a tiny whisper.

         He knows- he must know- how truly scared I am.

 

         Papa comes back from the fish market to find me sitting with my small suitcase, ready to leave when Aulie's call comes. "I have to go to the Capitol," I tell him right away, "I'm waiting to find out when the train will come in."

         "You're sure you're feeling well enough to make that trip?" he worries, putting the basket with his purchases from the market down on the kitchen table. He comes out and stands in front of me, looking me over with concern. "You've had more than your fair share of stress lately, and sadness. And you were so, so sick…"

         "Papa, I have to," I sigh. "It's because of Jack."

         I can see him tense. "I'm certain that Jack can handle whatever it is himself…"

         "…I don't know." I hate to say it, but if I do, I'm sure he'll understand. "Hasn't he proved that…maybe he can't?"

         As this sinks in, Papa raises his hands and rubs them over his face. "Tell me what's happened."

         He listens to my story and by the end, he's more or less sitting down beside me, despite my awkward position perched on the arm of the couch, to put his arms around me while I try not to cry. "Papa, all I want now is for everyone who's left to be okay. I don't want anything else. I'll be good and low-key and play by the Capitol's rules… I just…"

         When I go to the Capitol, and, perhaps I will only ever go now for the Games proper, I just want to be able to see Jack and say hello and smile and have him give me a thumbs-up in the mentoring room like he always does. Like any of the other victors have- just the opportunity to laugh a little and be friends. …when I see him on television, to know that he's all right…

        

 

         Aulie comes through with a ride for me on a train with just a single car for passengers. I will hurry to the Capitol with a few businessmen and women returning from District 11.

         "You promise me," Papa says on the platform, holding both my hands, "Promise me you're coming home this time too. No matter how things turn out. Mags, I love you."

         "I love you too. And I will come back. …If I don't…I promise that could only happen if returning weren't within my power."

 

         I travel in an uncomfortable silence. There's a large television in the passenger car and Russula Pert is on some talk program discussing Jack with the other personalities that generally populate these shows. They discuss what happened to Silk so recently, and to me. Russula postulates that it's the stress of all these things getting to Jack that caused him to announce such a strange thing. That "the poor man" only wants, somehow, to look after me, the inept straight man to his cheerful Games boosting act.

         My fellow passengers don't talk to me and the looks they give me a scattered and skeptical. Really, I'm more glad than not that they don't push.

         Aulie meets me at the station and pulls me close, though he maintains a delicate touch I'm grateful for. "Okay, I've called all around and the story that I'm hearing at the moment is that Jack is in the hospital Victors Ward because, well, they say he's had a nervous breakdown."

         "Oh," I consider this, "Oh, okay." I can work with that. Security is always tight there, but I'm also a victor. I can get in. I can get in by needing to make use of the medical facilities there.

         Just days ago I was disastrously ill and everyone knows it. Why not a relapse? Why not a nervous breakdown? If Jack can "have" one, I should be primed to be believed for my own? I look up at Aulie. "Can you get me to the hospital?"

         "Is there a problem?

         "No, but I'm going to say there is."

         Aulie gets a twinkle in his eye- he understands my plan. He nods, and, carrying my valise, walks me to his car. "How can I help, aside from transportation?"

         "Umm, how do I look to you? Pale enough? Would you believe I was sick if I started to act pained and cry and hold my stomach? …Is there some kind of medicine or something you can pick up that induces vomiting? So I can put myself over the edge in a pinch?"

         "Oh, that's kind of miserable," Aulie winces, "But I can." He drives to a pharmacy and comes back with some pills. "Here you are."

         "Thanks." I read the label, then take out two and stick them in my pocket. "You're the best, Aulie."

         "You've got a lot of what-for to make yourself sick to get in there," he laughs, pulling his car back onto the road, "I like that about you."

         "Well, I thought about asking you to knock a couple of my teeth loose, but I don't know, I couldn't make you do that."

         "Ah, good decision! There's no way I could let myself sock you hard enough to hurt you. Shall I hang out in the waiting room for you?"

         "I'd like that, but it might be a long time…" I fidget anxiously.

         Aulie shakes his head. "It doesn't bother me. I'm at your service, Mags. Anyway, their waiting room has great coffee."

         "All right then." I take a deep breath. "Now I've gotten work myself up to put on a good show, so pardon me." I close my eyes. I think about Silk- about the hideous details released about what happened to her- about her dolls abandoned on the table, about Pal and his guilt, about the fear and sorrow that accompanied being so ill. I can feel the knot of sadness inside. I reach for it rather than pushing it away. I start to cry. Yeah, crying is good. The nurses were so nice to me after my Games. If they see me looking like this they'll feel sorry for me.

         Aulie parks near the hospital building. He puts his arm around my shoulders and leads me up sympathetically. "Good luck," he whispers to me before we go inside.

         Aulie tells the woman behind the counter who I am before she can ask. I play up my anxiety, remembering every tribute breakdown I have ever witnessed, along with a good deal of more mundane sorrow and Emmy's unhappy tics for good measure. It is strange to go along with the flow of wild emotion when usually I fight against this sort of thing to stay calm and control.

         Some sort of hospital orderly ushers me into the elevator and I'm taken up to the victors' floor. The orderly has a small but elaborate-looking electronic device in his hand and with a code given to him by the receptionist behind the counter he's able to bring up what looks like my individual medical chart- quite a difference from the one I have back home with Dr. Haddock. The young man holds my wrist and takes my pulse and asks me generic questions to get the general idea of what's wrong with me. I make it a combination, claiming pain in my stomach along with intense anxiety.

         Upon reaching the proper floor, I catch sight of the black-dark nurse who was so particularly kind to me after my Games. "H-hi!" I wave. I don't remember her name.

         "Oh, my goodness, it's Mags," she breaks away from the nursing station to reach my side. "I'll take her 'til Doctor's free, Shim," she interjects herself between me and the orderly. He doesn't object, but merely sends my medical file over to her device, identical but for a shiny sticker on the side that reads: "Phoebe H." That's her name.

         Phoebe leads me to one of the private rooms. I try to look around for some glimpse of Jack, but if I want to play sick, I can't seem too interested in the tiny details of what's going on around me.

         Phoebe expresses her sympathies about my recent misfortune, of which she adds a general note to my file because apparently if I don't have something taken care of here, it's not added, then goes on to ask me about what's wrong. …I get the impression that she's mainly of the opinion that I've had some kind of anxiety attack, which they can prescribe me medication for, but in light of my recent medical shocker, I should talk to the actual doctor and probably have a blood test first.

         I wince when she draws the blood. "Now, wait here," she advises me, turning to leave the room. "I'll send the doctor in."

         I draw a long breath through my nose, waiting behind the mostly-closed door, giving Phoebe a moment to get further away. Then I wipe at the drying tears on my face and sneak out. I keep one hand on my stomach, as if to give the impression that it might be bothering me still. If anyone inquires, I'll ask about the location of bathroom.

         Just…try and act like I belong. Because I do. I am certainly a sick victor, even if there's no real physical reason for me to be in the hospital.

         I pass an open door to a room like where I recovered following my win, rather than the exam room I came from. This must be about the right area.

         One empty room, another, a closed door. The little piece of paper beside the door gives its occupant away: "J. Umber."

         It isn't locked. I burst in.

         Even compared to the quiet of the top floor, this space seems as silent as a tomb. Jack is lying in bed, some line of intravenous fluids running to his arm.

         I tiptoe closer. He's sleeping. Probably because he's drugged. "Jack," I whisper.

         He doesn't stir. I stroke his hair. "Psst, Jack," my voice strains with urgency even as I try to keep it quiet, "Wake up."

         His eyelids flicker a bit.

         I'd like to disconnect him from the bag of fluids, but I'm afraid of hurting him through my ignorance, so I leave it. I move his arm a bit and perch myself on the edge of the bed alongside him. I lean over, looking at him. There are bags under his eyes, but other than that, I can't say he looks particularly bad. He's just tired. The supposed nervous breakdown is only a cover for his sudden lack of hesitation to hold back the truth.

         I should've called him sooner. I should've said something- done something. I should've stopped this from happening (…but maybe I couldn't have).

         …I don't have forever to be here. I grit my teeth. "Jack," I grasp and squeeze his hand, "C'mon."

         He starts to break through. "Huh?" his bleary eyes focus on me, "Mags? Am I dreaming?"

         "You've started waking up, so don't stop now," I encourage him.

         "Peter…Bren, Nick, Zeno, Elmo?" he slurs a little from sleep and drugs still in his system.

         "Yeah," I keep at it, "Peter, Brendan, Nicholas, Zeno, Elmo. That's right. Someone big must've been watching out for you."

         "I told," he recalls, "I told about us and, boy, did it bring the house down."

         "Yeah, well," I am intent, "If they ask you again, tell them it was a game or a lie or something. You told the truth about something they didn't like and look where it stuck you. …I'm not an officially approved visitor, you know. I snuck in here to see you."

         "You're amazing," he shakes his head, barely lifted from the pillow.

         I sigh. Maybe he's just not with it enough for us to have this conversation and have any of it actually get through to him. …But I try again. "Jack, forget about the wedding, forget about being married. Neither of us need any more trouble. You know that I love you, right? Isn't that enough?"

         "…no," he struggles, "It's not so easily, but I'm not letting it go. I've talked to Sophie and my escort and even Miss Star… I can still take care of it."

         I don't like the sound of that, although I can't say precisely why beyond the fact, I suppose, that he hasn't been able to take care of any of it so far. But it's more than that. Maybe because a part of Jack that I've never met- but have seen (swinging his fists; spitting out teeth)- is that part that is willing to do anything. Absolutely anything. But just because you're willing to do anything, though, doesn't mean it will work.

         If we ask for more, we're going to exchange what we have for nothing. I'm just sure. I have this sinking feeling, like a weight slowly sinking a baited hook below the surface.

         "I'm not asking for this, Jack," I respond at length. I'm not sure what he'll say if I just out and tell him "I don't want you to die."

         "I know," he answers. "You don't need to ask."

         Why's he so stubborn? Why won't he give up on this? …I find I do hope that he's got too much…whatever…in him to remember all of this conversation. It's frustrating and I feel sort of sick for real now and probably it doesn't help that my hormones are still a mess. I just start crying.

         Jack seems to snap to a bit more (though not all the way) at this. "Aww, Mags," he pushes himself up to sit and puts his arms around me, "Don't cry. I'm sorry. I'll do whatever you want."

         It's too late for now. I can't stop crying.

         "I love you," he says. He kisses my forehead. Then he starts to sing.

 

         Jack is still singing when Phoebe opens the door with two other nurses and a doctor behind her and holds up her hands, shrugging at the two of us.

 

         With some mix of skepticism and annoyance warring on his face, the doctor listens to me and prescribes one medication to calm my stomach and another to calm my nerves.

         When I go down and meet Aulie in the waiting room, with the plastic containers of pills in a paper bag, he shows me a sheepish smile. "Nar called me up and chewed me out for sneaking you here. Seems that the hospital staff tattled on you. Slipping out and visiting your- your husband?" he pauses there, "Well, I guess I've learned that doesn't fall within under medical confidentiality."

         I sort of smile myself at Aulie's words. "Thanks for doing it anyway," I shake my head. "…And that's true. But don't say it anymore. We've had enough trouble as it is."

         "Nar wanted you to come over to his office, but I told him I wouldn't take you there," Aulie seems a little proud of himself as he repeats this incident to me. "I didn't tell him in as polite of words."

         Aulie takes me back to his house. I call Papa to let him know that I'm all right and that I've seen Jack and if he's not in the most optimum condition, I think, ultimately, things will turn out okay. After that call, Aulie temporarily disconnects his phone to keep Nar from guessing this is where I've ended up and bothering me here. We both laugh hysterically about it because we're terrible, I guess, but we're being terrible together.

         We have a very quiet rest of the day and night. Agitated as I actually am, I don't take any of the medicine.

         I dream about Jack singing to a baby, though, even in the dream, I feel vaguely sad.

         It isn't a cheering thought to wake up to.

 

         I join Aulie eating some kind of way too sugary to make sense as a breakfast sort of colored marshmallows and stuff from a box in front of his large television.

         Principa, from the morning news show, has gone to visit Jack in the hospital. To show the general public that he's all right, I guess (or to stop any of his other friends and associates from pulling the same stunt I did, possibly).

         "Hi," he greets her shyly. He looks very tired still, but he seems less drugged than when I visited. He apologizes for the trouble the other day, saying that it's true that all the stress of late has been getting to him. He doesn't speak directly to his remark about our marriage. Maybe that's Jack's sort of compromise between his personal feelings and what he told me.

         "I know you're all going to miss seeing me once a week on Morning Rainbow, but the ones who know best have decided that, for my health, I should take a short leave of absence. I plan to spend the next month back home in District One, recuperating."

         Principa fawns over him, saying how he works himself too hard and how strange it's going to be without him around the studio, even if it's just for a month.

         "I really do apologize," Jack seems to repeat himself, "To my friend Mags, in particular. …For all the trouble that I've caused her on top of the problems within her own life."

         Principa thanks Jack one last time and the show turns to the national weather report. Teallia, the weather girl, overdoes it about conditions in the Capitol, as usual (it's not like there's ever more than one type of weather going on in an area this size really), and beings to breeze through the districts in number order.

         But this time, Teallia is the one suddenly cut away from as the live cameras turn back on at the hospital.

         In the four and a half minutes we were watching the weather, Jack, rather upset (more reasonably to my ears than those of the average viewer knowing how he had wanted to keep on pushing to get his way), was dosed with a stronger medication than before to calm him, to which he had a severe reaction, and…

         And there is a flurry of noise and action in the room behind Principa, mostly blocked from sight her, as she tries to explain what's happening to the viewers at home, unable to keep her worry masked behind professionalism.

         Jack's heart doesn't start again.


	16. Epilogue

         I find it kind of strange that no reporter ever asks me if Jack and I were really married. I guess they're not even giving me the opportunity to foolishly go down that same road?

         I never wear my wedding ring in the Capitol. I barely ever wear it at home (just sometimes I want to remember). I keep it in the drawer of my nightstand. I get a little frame for the picture of us that he mailed me and set it up there beside my bed. Not that anyone aside from Faline or Papa ever enters my bedroom, but if they do, unlike the wedding snapshots, it's innocuous. It's probably the truest to us anyway. I look at the two of us smiling there and wonder about a million things that have no answers.

         For all that Jack was such a fixture in the Capitol and within the Games programming, his death is, I think, treated with less fanfare than Silk's. That she could die like that and the larger body of Games-related affairs could move proved, maybe, that any of us could be expendable.

 

         Maybe it's because Jack came before all the rest of us, but we other victors aren't called upon to talk about him for anything official. A few- Hector, Kayta, Shy- share reminiscences via secondary channels.

         There is a small Capitol memorial ceremony for him though and we're all dug up for it. He was cremated, Capitol style. I wonder, vaguely, whatever happened to his wedding ring. I carry mine with me to the ceremony in my pocket. At first it feels so strange and distant and unreal that I am stiff and silent, but when we are all milling about the reception afterward, I don't know- something hits home somehow? I'm not sure. I cry hysterically and find myself hiding away in a corner of the fancy garden rented out for the event.

         Everyone knows where I am though. Most of them talk to me anyway.

         I find out that the medication that killed Jack was the same one that made Emmy sick during the Fourteenth Games. Someone else tells me his replacement teeth were made of material so strong that they were left behind from the cremation when every other bone was down to fragments. I don't know whether or not I want to hear these hideous things, but I can't pull myself together to tell anyone to stop, so I hear them anyway.

         Sophie Varen, the only district citizen who is not a victor present, tells me that there are some people- romantics, I guess- who say that it was a broken heart that killed him. That he was forced to leave me and so he couldn't take any more.

         I want to believe that what happened to Jack was, like what happened to Silk as far as the powers that be was concerned, an accident. But when Luna speaks with me and says, "He knew that you weren't as stupid as he was. That all he'd do was screw up again somehow. Tell people about it more or knock you up again," it only reinforces the guilty feeling I have that one or the other of us (or both) was going to have to face serious consequences for how we had erred. And, in that case, Jack did what he said. He took care of it.

 

*****

 

         I turn twenty in a blur. I feel helpless as a child or as drained as if I'd staggered my way to one hundred. The gifts I receive from my fellow victors feel delivered as much as condolences as anything celebratory. I have a token party for the sake of all the locals I can enfold under the umbrella of festive generosity, but I stay out of most of it myself, sitting in the living room while everyone is in my yard eating and chatting more quietly than years past.

         I watch my tape of Jack from my first birthday as a victor over and over.

         I guess I'm glad, at least, that I have this recording. That the memory doesn't exist only in my mind. Here is Jack, smiling and singing for as long as this clip will last.

         For twenty days, he was my husband. Since the moment we met, he was my friend.

         I get the feeling that Papa is the only one who truly understands all this. I hope he knows how much I appreciate his support through everything.

         We spend a lot of time together. We talk about maybe him retiring early. Maybe gifting his boat to Mr. Kappe and buying a new one.

 

*****

 

         It comes out in March that Hector's girlfriend, Lilac, is four months pregnant. Barring any surprises- either via some extremely unfortunate turn of events or one of the other victors having been keeping something from the press and the rest of us, this baby will follow Kayta and Raisin's wedding as another victor first.

         The first child of a victor.

         Hector lets out eventually that it's going to be a girl. Names are still up for discussion. Gerik makes easy-going jokes about it. Hector's mother seems quite happy.

         Though there's a lot of press pushing toward the idea, Hector is quite blunt that just because he's going to be a father doesn't mean he and Lilac will necessarily be tying the knot anytime soon. He doesn't want to rush things. I can't say I blame him.

         I pray that Hector's daughter will have a peaceful life.

 

         Sophie Varen turns up pregnant as well with no father for her child in sight. She says that she's retiring from her post to raise a family, but Aulie tells me a rumor that they asked her to choose between the baby and her job. "They're kind of peculiar out in One about that kind of thing." Apparently she didn't feel she had many years left in the position though before they would replace her with someone younger and prettier, so it was good a time as any to get out.

         There is a retrospective of her five years of work in this capacity. Much of the footage includes Jack.

         I agree with those who think that Jack's absence is also a contributing factor to her decision. She liked working with him. She has no interest in trying to create chemistry with a replacement.

 

 

         An Avox from the Games Complex is arrested in regard to Silk's rape and murder. He is convicted in one day and hangs for his crime the next morning. It is Brendan, who was originally from 5. Who Pal introduced me to the year Silk won.

         Pal believes this is a frame-up so that the troubling case will be closed (he doesn't raise the possibility that it is a cover up to hide the crimes of someone the law is less happy to finger, but that also hovers in the corners of skeptical minds), but no one cares what Pal thinks.

         He did try to speak out on Brendan's behalf, but was brought to incoherence by horrible questioning- where was he when those things were happening to Silk? Why didn't he protect her then?

         (He was back at the studio, talking with Jack. Silk had meant to walk two blocks down a lit, populated, major street to where they were staying)

         How can anyone say those things but with the intent to destroy him? It is a wonder Pal keeps going. I wonder if he will ever manage to mentor a successful tribute again.

 

 

         Although some of my friends are sort of upset about it once we've spoken regarding this question, I don't see any way to pursue the angle of Nar's potential involvement in my miscarriage (and it could've been delegated to him from someone higher up at Victor Affairs anyway) even if I had the energy to, but I don't see how I can work with him any longer with this suspicion between us.

         …yet, some of the trickiest people to tread the streets of the Capitol are on my side. Shy makes an accusation against him of sexual harassment, which in light of Silk's fate is taken very seriously, and Nar is fired. I can't say I'm as bothered by her lying as I should be. Shy seems pleased with herself (considering her general character, no one takes this as a sign of wrongdoing on her part).

         A woman barely older than me, Ceres Blue, takes over his position. She seems an improvement. She even comes out to Four to meet me and I take her boating. She likes butterflies and designer clothes and she lives in the Second Tier of the Third Ring of the Capitol with four white cats (I have a feeling she and Apple will get on wonderfully). She was much enamored of the public presentation of my relationship with Jack. I'm not sure whether or not they told her about our marriage as part of the information package regarding having to work with me, so I don't mention it.

         "…it was a shame he was actually so sick…" she sighs over Jack, dipping her hand into the water and watching it swish around her fingers.

         I don't have anything to say about that. I stare out at the buoys bobbing along one edge of the harbor.

         Ceres tells me to keep in touch- maybe to call once a month or something off-season so she knows enough to manage things best for me and my tributes. She is more hopeful about future volunteers from 4 than I think the doubled demise of Jerrick and Maria should lead her to be, but she's very understanding about the general malaise I'm fighting. "You lost your good friend and then your child and your boyfriend all within a few weeks," Ceres says, "It's no wonder that you'd be depressed."

         I hope Ceres will last in this job. I think she's a good person.

 

*****

 

         I continue to meet with my 'club,' though my heart isn't much in it. I sit on the beach while they run and play and practice throws learned from a book I bought in the Capitol.

         Faline and Reza go out on a date. I can only wish them happiness.

         Peterzeno starts going way Down-District to visit his adopted brother (Padre) Danio and picking fights in search of someone with good practical experience to help him and the rest of the club members practice. Danio and Padre Tino and all get pretty mad at him about it, but it nets the club one new member, Angelo Son, and when it comes to actual martial arts, he can fill my sandals several times over and then some. He's the right addition at the right time, I suppose.

         I say that I need to time to think and there's no lie in that. For a while, it seemed my life was moving far too fast, but now it's slowed down. I have a lot of time to think and a lot of thinking to do.

         Aulie sends out a box of t-shirts one day- yellow ones, with waves on the bottom. A small ring of words around the District 4 emblem in the center proclaims us the "Special Athletics Club." I guess it's official then. Mine says "coach" on the back.

 

 

         I suppose by the time the Fifteen Games begin, I am still thinking. Rodrigo Shoal does the noble thing- what Hector and Gerik had long guessed that he would do- in his last year of eligibility and volunteers. A sixteen-year-old girl named Tuesday O'Taidhg is reaped from the Up-District bayous. She asks to just be called "Tu," her nickname.

         Neither Rodrigo or Tu is going to be a bad tribute. I owe it to them to get my head in the game. At least Apple and Aulie are there to assist.

         Ceres gets me on television with Hector and Gerik and we do blab plenty, but it's not the same as what I had there with Jack. If my tributes can prove themselves with good enough scores, Gerik promises we can get an alliance together between our districts this year.

         1 and 2 field pairs of volunteers. 9 yields Kiki Vetiver, a sister of Luna, and Noah Mallow, who I think I may have met briefly when I stopped in that district (but perhaps I am mixing him up with someone else).

         I am doing what I can, but the void where Jack would be- joking, making commentary, boosting 1's tributes- it haunts me.

         In 'Mentor Central,' a woman I don't know fills his seat.

 

 

         Maybe I was wrong before. Maybe only another victor from Four can truly be my own kind.

 

 

         ...And, even then, I might fail to keep them safe (yet, oh, how I want them anyway- Rodrigo or Tu or whoever- I will take anyone I can help save).

 

         Pal's tributes die, again, on the first day of the Fifteenth Hunger Games. Mine live (and, for the first time, the alliance with 2 comes through). I ask him to sit with me.

         Everyone looks at us now and again with sympathy or pity or a cool reserve to stay carefully away from such twin vortexes of disaster, at least until we've proven that we aren't about to take anyone else down with us. We are bereft; in mourning still - we may be for a long time.

         It took about fifteen years for victors to fall- as mortal and fallible as anyone else. Should fifteen years sound, in this case, like a long time or a short one? Jack had some time and he used it… Silk died young enough that she could've been reaped again.

         "Your hand is trembling," Pal murmurs. He reaches out and takes it. Despite all the layers he always seems to be wearing, his hand feels very cold.

         In a way, I think, all of our colleagues are waiting. Silk, then Jack. Will Pal or I fall next? Will all of us crumble prematurely into dust?

         I can't entirely say I blame them for wondering, but I vow to myself I won't be the next domino to tumble. And I will do my best to hold Pal up along with me. I will struggle on, even if it never stops hurting. I will remember all that I can, even if that only inflames the pain.

                  I'm going to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was very much a labor of love (a lot longer word-wise and time-wise to write than I expected). Thank you so much for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> (and, yes, I made a [little mix you can listen to](http://8tracks.com/suzume/your-own-kind) as I worked on this one too. + bonus [Mags+Jack centered mix](http://8tracks.com/suzume/come-between-the-girl-and-the-sea))


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